Welcome to Part Three of our WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part One of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do is post great content regularly to automatically attract web traffic!)
In Part 2, we looked at critical setup decisions. We explained the best way to start 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 website has been built using 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 this process. You will understand what makes an expertly configured WordPress site different, and just what type of work is required to ensure that when everything is fully set up and configured, you can begin getting new traffic automatically when you start posting fresh content on your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by many website owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With business becoming ever more competitive worldwide, it’s worth exploring any advantage available to improve your own performance online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand is a huge advantage over other competitors. An expertly configured WordPress site gives you an immediate competitive advantage from the very beginning.
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 a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to understand the main difference:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a professional web presence plus an automated online business marketing tool!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only does a whole lot more labor go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special type of expertise.
To illustrate this point here’s a little story.
Knowing Where To Tap
All was going just fine in the widget assembly line when everything came to a sudden stop.
As no one could figure out what happened, the manager decided to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert immediately went to the main control box. After staring silently at the electronic components for no more than 3 minutes, the expert then produced a little hammer and made a very gentle tap about three inches from the left corner of the control unit.
Immediately, every machine returned to normal.
The floor manager was overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager received an invoice for $5,000.
The manager rang back the expert, demanding to know why they had been charged 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 arrived in the manager’s intray. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive traffic to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when production stopped working and no one on the business had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to demand fair compensation for having invested years building up the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to quickly repair a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your blog fully configured so all you had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other web 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 driving traffic to your site?)
Although the solution to many problems can seem ridiculously easy once it’s been implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than simply installing a website and configuring settings for clients. It also involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which plugins need to be installed for specific things to occur on your site.
- Which third-party services you need to set up and activate to achieve desired results
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured to make sure everything works to plan, etc.
(Driving 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 involved and complicated. This is because it’s not as simple as installing and configuring a piece of software, clicking a couple of buttons, or tweaking some options and settings in your admin area … it’s all of this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of different components such as your web hosting server, your web site, and a number of external sites and online services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s examine these areas.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for website installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about configuring settings and options in your web server specifically for handling web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your web server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the web traffic you will attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, is all about evaluating your needs, planning for good and bad traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include looking at things like spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring domain and email forwarding, setting up error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, page error redirections, etc?)
After fine-tuning your web server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various external sites or online services.
Third-Party Solutions
The basic concept of setting up external sites is that all content gets published from one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it gets automatically distributed to other components of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you add these external platforms to your system, content with links pointing back to your site will be automatically published on these platforms. Your content will then be exposed to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some of these external sites and solutions will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress site 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 WordPress site:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmaster Tools)
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 essential data, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
After setting up your account with Google Search Console, this information can be used to integrate and automate traffic-related settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s performance, SEO, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and social media referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, you can add your account code to all of your pages in WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and feed data instantly to many other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your account and site details with Bing are set up, you can use this information with web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you plan to build a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate these features into your traffic generation system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and get new visitors to your site)
You will need to have already set up your various social media accounts in order to configure these as part of 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 attract new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have set up accounts with all the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to go crazy, just pick the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools (we discuss some of these tools in greater detail further below and during the Automation phase).
(There are lots of social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online web platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as secondary sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add your WordPress blog feed …
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 account.
There are many different solutions that can be added to your traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you would like to explore this area further and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
WordPress – Configuring Your Site For Traffic
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
Configuring WordPress Settings
By default, your WordPress admin area includes a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and frequently overlooked traffic notification systems available to WordPress users …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Section)
As stated below the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have purposely chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the update services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, this section displays only one entry …
(WordPress Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list containing all of the update services you want notified to this section and WordPress takes care of the rest …
(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 visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can have an influence traffic. For example, your choice to display the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could impact someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog 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.
As far as traffic is concerned, however, the main setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Typically, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables your site to notify various update services whenever a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, leave this box unchecked …
(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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalinks Section)
The examples below show some of the ways permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
We have written a detailed tutorial on using permalinks here: Improve Your WordPress SEO With Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Traffic Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that help to add just about every type of functionality imaginable to your website, including plugins with features that help to improve 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 website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No blog is guaranteed immunity from a cyberattack.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to bots and hackers.
More information:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your web pages …
(WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your website more search engine friendly)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your website’s search engine optimization. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google to index, it also lets you 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 with others online can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if your site provides great content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
You can add social sharing features to your site easily with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Many social share 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 followers), etc. Some social share plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your site which users can unlock by sharing your page.
Themes
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 the design and layout of your website, many themes also provide options for improving SEO and site linking structure for better indexing, add analytics code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes come with built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your pages is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features)
Configuring Additional Features Of WordPress
Last but not least in the WordPress traffic system configuration process, are the components that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both good and unwelcome 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 business online (or plan to), you need to make sure that your website is compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business online.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
We have written a detailed article about adding compliance pages to WordPress here:
WordPress Post Tags & Post Categories
WordPress post categories and tags help search engines index your pages, which improves traffic.
(WordPress post categories help search engines index your website, which improves traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your website’s post tags and categories during the Website Planning Phase.
When configuring your site to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and post categories have been correctly set up to deliver optimal results.
Site Map
A site map that lists 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 …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Although Google can 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 Page Not Found – An Additional Source Of Web Traffic!
When online users type in the wrong web address or click on an invalid link, they are presented with an error page …
(A 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up in your web server, there are several WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your site has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do is post content on a regular basis to generate more web traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of a number of different elements and web properties …
(WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of skills and knowledge required to perform this process typically takes some website developers months to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is covered in the next section of our WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Section Three
To read more, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of an tutorial series aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively using a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven web 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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