Welcome to Part 3 of our WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a site into an automated traffic generation machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part One of this 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 site, all you have to do to automatically start generating new traffic is add great content on a regular basis!)
In Part Two, we focused on the setup phase of the automation process. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your existing website has been built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up a WordPress web site on your domain)
In this section of the series, we will discuss the configuration stage of the traffic blueprint. We will help you understand what makes an expertly configured WordPress site different, and just what kind of work is required to ensure that when everything is fully configured, new visitors will automatically start flowing just by consistently publishing fresh content to your site.
WordPress Traffic Automation System – Configuration Phase
The ability to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Also, the business landscape is becoming so much more competitive worldwide and businesses are exploring any advantage they believe will help them increase their competitiveness online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous advantage over other competitors. An expertly configured WordPress site gives your business a significant advantage from the very start.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to understand the main difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a professional web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only are more steps required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special kind of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with an amusing story.
Knowing Where To Tap
Everything is humming along in the gizmo manufacturing plant when things suddenly grinds to a halt.
As no one can figure out what’s happened, the manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Soon afterward, the expert arrives and heads straight towards the control box. After staring silently at the circuit board for no more than 5 minutes, the expert then takes out a tiny little hammer from his shirt pocket and makes a gentle tap about 1 inch from the right corner of the unit.
Immediately, everything begins to work as before.
The plant manager is grateful and relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the manager receives a request of payment for services totalling $5,000.
Outraged and bewildered, the factory manager rings the expert. Demanding to know why the expert has charged them so much for so little time spent delivering such minimal amount of work, he promptly requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives and is placed in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive traffic to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when production stopped functioning and no one in the business had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert not have the right to ask to be compensated fairly for years spent building up the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to quickly assess and fix a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a site set up so all you have to do is publish content to it and search engines, social networking sites and dozens of other online properties would be immediately notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors 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 requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few internal settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which plugins you need to install to get desired functionalities on your site.
- Which third-party services need to be set up to get certain outcomes
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure to make sure things work as planned, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This stage of the WordPress traffic automation system is not so technically challenging, but it’s quite complicated. It’s not as simple as installing and configuring a solution, clicking on a button or two … it’s all of this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a process that involves your server, your website or blog, and a number of third-party sites and services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If the activities involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of the activities involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine what’s involved in more detail.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for installation purposes. We’re talking about configuring settings in your server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic you may attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect 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 can include things like implementing server-level spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email redirections, setting up 404 error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
After fine-tuning your server settings and configuring these, the next step is to set up and configure a number of external sites and services.
Integration With External Sites
The purpose of adding external sites is that all content should be posted to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will automatically be syndicated to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After adding these external platforms to your network, content linked back to your website will be automatically posted to your search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and site will benefit from additional exposure online, helping your business tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some sites will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress site’s settings to help save time 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 settings:
Google Search Console
(Google Webmasters)
Google Webmasters lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of useful data, tools and reports about your website.
Once your Google Webmasters account is set up, you can use this information with web traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s traffic results, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrals, etc.
After setting up your Once you have set up Google Analytics, your account code can be added to all of your pages in WordPress via a simple plugin used with other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. After setting up your account and entering site details, your details can be used to automate web traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers a self-hosted (WordPress.org) and a hosted (WordPress.com) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you plan to grow a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your traffic system in Part Four of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new traffic to your site)
You will need your social media and social bookmarking accounts set up before you can 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 sites and get new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have accounts and pages set up with all of the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can set up. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose the ones that will work well with your system and/or content sharing tools.
(There are lots of social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of online platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free levels, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator site 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 is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your social feed.
There are many different sites and platforms you can incorporate into your own traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore some of these and discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
Configuring WordPress For Traffic
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 of the important areas.
Configuring Global WordPress Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most important and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification systems available to WordPress users …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Screen)
As described 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 specifically configured your settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the services entered into the Update Services section
By default, this section contains only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
WordPress lets you 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 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 influence traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your site to get 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 in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is enabled or not.
Normally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables WordPress to notify various update services when a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Section)
Discussion
Although this section is mostly concerned with how users engage with content on your site, you have the option to allow notifications to sites linked to from your articles, 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 search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the ways search-friendly URLS can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
We have created a detailed tutorial on using permalinks in WordPress here: Setting Up WordPress Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that can add almost every kind of functionality imaginable to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Let’s look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that improve traffic generation
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for handling 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 afford to ignore the importance of website security.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to attacks from hackers and bots.
For more details, go here:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website …
(SEO plugins help increase traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your site’s search engine optimization. When properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google and Bing 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.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content online can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if your site provides great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing buttons to your website using free or inexpensive plugins)
There are many social sharing plugins to choose from.
Many social plugins allow you to choose which social sites your content can be shared 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 which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
WordPress – Traffic Features In Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your site, many themes also include built-in features that let you improve SEO and site linking structure for faster indexing, easily add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes like Graphene (a free theme) allow you to configure options and settings for better traffic results)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing features to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features)
Additional Configuration Areas For WordPress
Last but not least in the WordPress traffic configuration process, are the elements that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Compliance Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for both good and unwanted traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you do any kind of business online, it’s important that your site complies with all legal requirements.
(Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, see this article:
WordPress Categories & Tags
WordPress tags & post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your pages.
(Categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better organize and index your pages.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your website’s post tags and categories during the Website Planning Stages.
When looking at ways to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s tags and categories have been correctly set up to deliver optimal results.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A visitor site map that displays all of your site’s pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools 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 two different things. HTML site maps are web pages that provide users with a logical map of how your content is organized, whereas XML sitemaps are mostly filled with code that only search engines can interpret. Although search engines like Google can index your site just using 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 results in increased traffic.
Your WordPress 404 Error Page
When visitors type in the wrong web address or click on links pointing to pages on your site that no longer exist, they are greeted with a 404 error page …
(A 404 Error Page)
A 404 page can be configured into a useful source of traffic to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found error page can be set up in your server, there are plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your website has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do to automatically attract traffic is post great content on a consistent basis.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of different elements and web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The expertise required to perform this process typically takes some website developers months to acquire.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the aspects of the process that can be automated. This step is explained in the next section of our WordPress Traffic System series.
This is the end of Section Three
To continue reading, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive tutorial series aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business using a WordPress-driven website and proven online marketing strategies.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now
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