Welcome to Part Three of our WordPress Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn your website into an automated web traffic generation machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part 1 of this series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do to generate web traffic is add content consistently!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase of this process. We explained the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your website was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we look at the configuration phase of this process. We will help you understand why an expertly configured WordPress site is different. You will also learn just what kind of work needs to be done to make sure that when everything is set up and fully configured, visitors will automatically start flowing when you post content on your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic System – Configuration Phase
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as the greatest challenge they face online. Also, the business landscape is becoming so much more competitive and businesses are exploring any advantage they can that can help you get better results online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand is a tremendous advantage. With an expertly configured website, you have a flying start and an immediate advantage online.
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 take advantage of everything WordPress can offer you.
Here’s a simple way to describe the differences:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only is extra labor required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special type of expertise.
Let me illustrate this point with an amusing little story.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
All is running smoothly in the widget assembly line when all of a sudden, the machines stops.
As no one can figure out what’s wrong, the floor manager decides to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Soon afterward, the expert arrives and, without saying a word, goes directly to the control box. After staring at the wiring diagrams for about 2 minutes, the expert then produces a tiny hammer from his pocket and makes a single tap near the right edge of the control unit.
Immediately, everything begins to work once more.
The plant manager is greatly 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 request for payment of $5,000.
Bewildered and angry, the factory manager calls the expert. Why were they expected to pay such an exorbitant fee for so little time spent delivering such minimal amount of work? He then requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrives and is placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new traffic consistently to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the widget plant stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one on the factory floor had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert not have the right to be compensated fairly for having spent years developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to assess and avert a potentially costly crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your WordPress web site fully set up so all you had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other traffic-generating web 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 driving traffic to your site?)
Although the solution to many problems often seems quite simple once implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than simply installing a website 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 accounts need to be set up and activated to get specific outcomes
- Which settings need to be configured in order to ensure that things will function exactly as you want, etc.
(Driving new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This part of the traffic automation system is not so technically challenging, but it’s quite involved and complicated. The reason why is because it’s not as easy as installing a plugin, configuring some settings in your dashboard area or clicking on a button or two … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of various different components including your web hosting server, your website or blog, and various third-party sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at what’s involved in more detail.
Web Server Configuration
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your hosting account for installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is configuring settings and options in your server that affect how you will handle web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, 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 traffic your business can attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for good and unwelcome traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like integrating server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirects, etc?)
Once your server settings have been checked and configured, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various third-party sites.
External Sites
The basic concept of choosing external sites is that all of your content will get posted to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will be automatically distributed to other components of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external services have been added to your configuration, content linking back to your site is automatically added to these platforms. Your content and website will be given additional exposure to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some third-party web properties and online services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress settings to help speed up the configuration 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 WordPress site’s settings:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmasters)
Google Webmasters lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of useful information, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
After setting up your account and entering site data with Google Search Console, the details can be used to automate traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrers, etc.
After setting up your Once you have set up Google Analytics, your account data can be easily integrated with WordPress using a plugin used with other applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account and site details with Bing are set up, you can use your details with web traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers website owners the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. 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 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 traffic generation system in Part 4 of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and bring new traffic to your site)
You will need your various social media and social bookmarking accounts set up 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 and social bookmarking accounts and get new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have accounts set up with all of the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can You can post your content to lots of social sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just pick the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools.
(There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online web platforms and content aggregators that can serve as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add an RSS feed from your WordPress blog …
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 visitors can follow your website.
There are many different solutions that can be incorporated into your own traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore this area further and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Site
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Configuring WordPress Settings
By default, WordPress includes a Settings menu that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains a powerful and often overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings Area)
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 purposely configured your site settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the services entered into the Update Services field
By default, only one service is available …
(Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of update services 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 have an influence traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could play a part in someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog to read the rest of the content from excerpts, 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 in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Typically, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows WordPress to notify the update services list when new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Global 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 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings Screen)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings Screen)
Here are some of the options for configuring your site’s permalinks …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
We have written a detailed tutorial on using permalinks in WordPress here: Changing Your WordPress Permalinks
WordPress Traffic Generation Plugin Settings – Configuration
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that can add almost every kind of functionality to your website, including traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to increase traffic
Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No website or blog is guaranteed immunity from cyber-attacks.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to attacks from hackers and bots.
Go here to learn more:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web pages easily indexable …
(WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive traffic by making your website more search engine friendly)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (formerly known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your site’s search engine optimization. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines to find and index, it also gives you control over how your content is presented in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content with members of their own social communities can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you publish great content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social features to their website using free or inexpensive plugins)
You can easily add social sharing to your site with free or inexpensive plugins.
Most social share plugins allow you to select which sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social share plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your pages which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
Configuring WordPress Theme Settings For Traffic Generation
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your website, many themes also provide built-in options for improving SEO and site navigation structure for faster indexing, easily add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes like Graphene (a free theme) include 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 button …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic System – Additional Configuration
Last (but by no means least) in the configuration process, are the areas that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include:
Legal Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only how to handle bad and good traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of business online (or plan to), it’s important that your site is found to comply with all regulations.
(Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
To learn more about how to quickly add legal pages to your site, see this article:
Post Tags And Categories
Post tags & categories help search engines better organize and index your website, which helps you get more traffic.
(Post categories help to improve your site’s search engine optimization, which helps to increase traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your site’s post categories and tags earlier on, during the Website Planning Stage.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the categories and tags you have set up.
A Site Map Of Your Pages and Posts
A site map that displays all of your pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external applications find your site’s content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. Only search engine bots can interpret an XML sitemap. Although search engines like Google will index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Your 404 Page Not Found
When visitors searching online for your website enter the wrong web address or click on an invalid link, they will normally be greeted with an error – page not found message (known as a 404 Not Found page) …
(Default WordPress 404 Page)
A 404 Error Page can be configured to funnel traffic to your functional pages …
(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 server, there are several plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your WordPress site expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do is post content on a consistent basis to generate web traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of different components and web properties …
(WP Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of expertise required to perform the configuration phase of the traffic automation process typically takes many web professionals a long time to acquire.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is covered in the next article in the series.
This is the end of Part 3
To keep reading about this topic, click on the link below:
This article is part of an article series designed to help small business owners learn how to grow their business online inexpensively and drive traffic automatically with a WordPress website or blog and proven web marketing strategies.
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"I am beyond impressed with what you have put together. I can tell that you put a ton of hard work into building what you have. You have the absolute best content on WordPress I have ever seen!" - Robert T. Jillie
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