Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your site using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part 1 of this article series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do to automatically attract traffic is add new content regularly!)
In Part 2, we looked at 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 website has been built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this article, we discuss the configuration stage of the traffic blueprint. We explain how to configure a WordPress site to bring new visitors automatically when you begin to post content to your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Configuration Phase
The ability to attract more visitors 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 looking into any and every advantage available to improve your own results and performance online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand is a tremendous competitive advantage. For businesses, an expertly configured website means having an immediate competitive advantage from the very beginning.
The Configuration Phase Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by a website-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 and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does a whole lot more work go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special type of expert knowledge.
To illustrate this here’s an amusing anecdote.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
Everything is running smoothly in the widget workshop when things grind to a sudden halt.
As no one can figure out what is wrong, the floor manager decides to call in an expert.
Soon afterward, the expert arrives and, without saying a word, immediately heads towards the control box. After staring silently at the wiring diagrams for less than 5 minutes or so, the expert then produces a tiny hammer from his tool belt and makes a very gentle tap about three cm from the right corner of the unit.
Immediately, everything begins to work again.
The manager is overjoyed as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager receives a bill for $5,000.
Furious, the factory manager calls the expert. Why had he charged them so much for less than 5 minutes work? He promptly requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrives in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive visitors to their sites.
How much money did the plant stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one in the factory floor was able to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have the right to get paid fairly for having invested years acquiring the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to fix a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a WordPress web site set up and configured so all you have to do is publish content to it and search engines, social sites and dozens of other web properties would be instantly notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your site?)
While many experts often make complicated situations and problems look easy, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few settings. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs need to be installed to get various functionalities on your site.
- Which 3rd-party accounts you need to set up to get specific outcomes
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured in order to ensure that everything works to plan, etc.
(Generating 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. This is because it’s not as easy as installing and configuring a plugin, clicking on a button or two … it’s all of this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of many different parts such as your web hosting server, your website, and a number of third-party sites or online services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing the activities involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these areas.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web hosting account for installation purposes. What we are talking about, is configuring settings and options in your web server that affect how you will handle web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the traffic you may attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like implementing spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
After checking your web server settings and configuring these, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites and/or online services.
Third-Party Accounts Configuration
The basic concept of choosing external sites is that all content gets published from a central location (your site) and from there, it gets automatically distributed to other components of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you add these external sites to your system, content linked back to your website is automatically added to these platforms. Your content will then be exposed to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of these web properties and online platforms will need to be set up before configuring your 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:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmasters – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Search Console lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of important data, tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
Once your Google Search Console account and site details have been set up, you can use this information with traffic-related settings and notifications 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 site’s performance, SEO, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site details have been set up, traffic tracking data can be integrated with WordPress via plugins used with other applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your account has been with Bing are set up, use this information to integrate and automate web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress offers a self-hosted (WordPress.org) and a hosted (WordPress.com) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you plan to grow a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at 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 Pages
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and get new visitors to your site)
You will need your 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 sites and social bookmarking accounts and attract new visitors to your site.
You should set up accounts with all the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can You can post your content to lots of social sites. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose the ones that will work with your setup and/or content sharing tools (we will review some of these tools in more detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(There are many social sites you can post your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary-level traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute social content to social networks)
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 RebelMouse social feed.
There are various platforms that can be incorporated into your own traffic system. Please contact us if you would like to explore this area further and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress Traffic Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global WordPress Settings
Your WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most important and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to WordPress users …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Area)
As described in the Update Services section,
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 – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the services entered into the Update Services text box
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is listed …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of all the update services you want to notify as soon as you publish a new post 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 Settings
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 web traffic. For example, your choice to display the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could play a part in someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your site 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 most important setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is enabled or not.
Typically, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables WordPress to ping all the update services you have specified in the Update Services field whenever a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion Settings
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 content, 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 create SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the options for configuring your site’s SEO-friendly URLs …
(Configuring post permalinks)
For a detailed tutorial about setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO With Permalinks
Plugin Settings
WordPress provides users with plugins that can add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your site, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Let’s look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website 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 simply cannot afford to ignore the importance of securing your web sites.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to malicious attacks from hackers and botnets.
Go here for more information:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your site’s SEO …
(WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive traffic by improving your website’s SEO)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your SEO. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find and index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content with their friends and members of their social networks can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you provide content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their site with free or inexpensive plugins)
There are loads of social sharing plugins available for WordPress users.
Most social share plugins allow you to specify 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 likes), etc. Some social share plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your site which users can unlock by sharing your page.
Theme Settings
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 options for improving SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, add analytics code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) allow you to configure options and settings for improved traffic results)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons to your pages is as easy as clicking a few buttons to configure your settings and enable the feature …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
Configuring Other Sections Of WordPress
Last but not least in the configuration process, are the elements that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
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 when more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you do any type of business online (or plan to), it’s important that your website complies with all regulations.
(Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
We have created a detailed article about adding legal pages to WordPress here:
Post Categories And Post Tags
WordPress post tags and categories help search engines better organize and index your pages, which helps to increase traffic.
(Post categories help to improve your site’s search optimization, which improves traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your website’s post tags and post categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Phase.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and categories you have set up.
Add A Site Map To Your WordPress Site
A site map that displays all of your pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications discover more of your website content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. Although Google can index your pages just using an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – Another Source Of Web Traffic!
When visitors searching online for your site type in the wrong URL into their web browser or click on a dead hyperlink, they will typically be presented with an error page (known as a 404 Not Found page) …
(A 404 Error Page)
A 404 Error Page can be configured to funnel traffic to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found page can be set up in your web server, there are several plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your website or blog has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do to begin bringing new traffic is post new content on a regular basis.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of different elements and external web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take some web professionals 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 article in the WordPress Traffic Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive article series aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business with a WordPress-powered website and proven web marketing strategies.
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