Welcome to Part Three of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your site using the WordPress CMS.
In Part 1 of this series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to automatically start generating new traffic is add fresh content on a consistent basis!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase of the traffic automation process. We explained the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your site was built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we discuss the configuration phase of the traffic blueprint. You will learn how to configure a WordPress site to ensure that visitors will automatically start flowing when you add new content on your WordPress site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by business owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. Businesses are becoming ever more competitive on a global scale and are exploring any advantage they believe will increase their competitiveness online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand is a huge advantage over the competition. For WordPress users, an expertly configured website means having an immediate advantage from the word “go”.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally installed and 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 with online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only are more steps needed to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special type of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with a story.
A Semi-True Story …
All was going well in the widget assembly line when suddenly, everything ceased working.
No one could figure out what has gone wrong and so the plant manager decided to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Shortly after arriving, the expert walked immediately to the main control box. After staring at the control unit for no more than 5 minutes, the expert then produced a teeny-weeny hammer and made a single tap near the right-hand corner of the unit.
Immediately, the assembly line returned to normal.
The plant manager was greatly overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the factory manager received a bill for $5,000.
The factory manager dialled the expert, demanding to know why the expert had charged them such a large amount of money for less than 5 minutes work. He promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice arrived in the manager’s intray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is driving new traffic to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one on the factory floor had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have every right to get paid fairly for investing years developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your WP website or blog fully configured so all you had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social sites and dozens of other online properties would be instantly notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your website?)
While many experts often make difficult situations and problems look easy, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs need to be installed for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which accounts you need to set up and activate to achieve desired results
- Which options need to be configured to ensure that things function as you have imagined, etc.
(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this stage of the traffic automation system may not seem so technically challenging, it can be quite complicated. The reason why is because it’s not as easy as installing and configuring a piece of software, clicking a button, or configuring some options and settings in your admin area … it’s all this and so much more.
The configuration stage is a complex process that involves your web server, your website, and various third-party sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we create a simple flowchart of the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of the activities involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these steps in more detail.
Your Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for installation purposes. What we are talking about, is configuring settings and options in your server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your web server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the traffic your website may attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for both good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like implementing server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After fine-tuning your server settings and configuring these, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of external sites.
External Sites
The idea behind choosing external sites is that all of your content will be published to one central location (your site) and from there, it will get syndicated automatically to other parts of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external platforms have been added to your network, content with links pointing back to your website is automatically posted to search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and site will be given exposure to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some web properties and online solutions will need to have accounts set up before configuring your site to 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 before configuring your WordPress settings:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmasters)
Google Webmasters lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with essential information, tools and reports about your website.
After setting up your account and entering site data, use the details with web traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s performance, SEO, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and social media referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account has been set up, your account information can be easily integrated with WordPress using a plugin used with other applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your account and site details have been set up, this information can be used to integrate and automate traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO 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 plan to build a professional online presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your automated traffic system in Part Four of this article series.
Social Media Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and get new visitors to your site)
You will need your social accounts set up 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 sites and bring new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have set up accounts and profiles with all the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can set up accounts with. 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 syndication tools (we will review some of these tools in greater detail in the Automation phase).
(There are loads of social sites you can post your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free plans, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add an RSS feed from your WordPress blog …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your account.
There are various technologies and third-party applications that can be added to your own traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress – Configuring Your Web Site
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
WordPress – Global Settings
Your WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Screen)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most powerful and often overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(WordPress 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 intentionally configured your site settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the update services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, this section lists only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
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
This section affects how your content gets seen by readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can influence web 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 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 most important setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Normally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to ping various update services whenever a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, make sure this box is left unticked …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion
Although discussion settings 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 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)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the ways your permalink URLs can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
If you need help setting up WordPress permalinks, see this step-by-step tutorial: Improve Your WordPress SEO Using Permalinks
WordPress Traffic Plugin Settings – Configuration
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that help to add just about every type of functionality to your site, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Let’s take a brief look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to improve traffic generation
WordPress 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, website security is something you simply cannot ignore.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to bots and hackers.
Go here for more info:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your site more search engine friendly …
(WP Plugin – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your website’s SEO. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find, crawl and index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed to Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content with members of their own online communities can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their site with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
You can add social features to your site easily using free or inexpensive plugins.
Most social plugins let you choose 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 followers), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to protect content which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Configuring WordPress Theme Settings For Traffic Generation
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your website, many themes also give you built-in options for improving SEO and site navigation structure for faster indexing, easily add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes can be configured for improved traffic results)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing 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)
Other Configuration Aspects For WordPress Traffic
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic system configuration process, are the things that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Legal Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and unwelcome traffic but also for all the situations that can seriously affect your business when 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 website stays compliant with all laws and regulations.
(Is Your Site Legally Compliant?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, go here:
Categories And Tags
Post tags & post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to classify and index your web pages.
(WordPress post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your pages.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your site’s post tags and categories should be reviewed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Stage.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the categories and tags that have been set up.
Add A Site Map
A site map that lists all of your site’s pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external sites find 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 two different things. An HTML site map is a web page that links to all other content on your site, while an XML sitemap is mostly code that only search engine bots can understand. Although Google will index your site just from 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.
404 Error Page – Another Source Of Traffic!
When visitors searching online for your website type in the wrong URL or click on hyperlinks pointing to pages on your site that no longer exist, they are presented with a 404 Not Found page …
(A 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your 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 website has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do then to start attracting web traffic is publish fresh content on a regular basis.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of different elements and web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of skills and expertise required to perform the configuration process typically takes some website developers a long time to learn.
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 section of the series.
This is the end of Part 3
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
This article is part of an article series aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business using a WordPress website and proven web marketing methods.
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