Welcome to Part 3 of our WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated web traffic generation machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part One of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do is add content on a regular basis to generate traffic!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase of this process. We helped you understand 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 was built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we look at the configuration stage of the traffic system. We will explain what makes an expertly configured WordPress site different. You will also learn just what kind of work is required to make sure that when all is fully set up and configured, you can automatically start getting visitors when you post fresh content to your WordPress site.
WordPress Traffic Automation System – Configuration
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With business getting so much more competitive worldwide, it’s worth exploring any and every opportunity you can to get better results online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous advantage over the competition. With an expertly configured WordPress site, you have a flying start as soon as your website is launched.
Configuration 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’s one way to describe the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only is more labor required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special type of expert knowledge.
Allow me to illustrate this point with an anecdote.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
Everything was going just fine in the gizmo factory when suddenly, the machines stopped.
No one could figure out what went wrong and so the plant manager decided to call in an expert.
Soon afterwards, the expert arrived and, without saying a word, walked immediately towards the control box. After staring silently at the circuit board for 5 minutes or less, the expert then produced a little hammer and made a very gentle tap near the left edge of the box.
Immediately, everything returned to normal.
The manager was filled with joy as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the factory manager received a bill for $5,000.
The manager called the expert, demanding to know why they had been charged so much for less than 5 minutes work. He then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrived on the manager’s desk. 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 plant stand to lose when the equipment stopped working and no one in the factory floor had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have the right to demand fair compensation for spending years developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to quickly avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your site configured so all you had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social followers from Facebook and Twitter and dozens of other web properties would be immediately 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 website?)
While the solution to many problems is often ridiculously simple in hindsight, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than just installing a website and configuring a few basic settings. It requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which programs need to be installed to add specific functionalities to your site.
- Which accounts you need to set up and activate to get specific outcomes
- Which options you need to configure to ensure that everything works as envisioned, etc.
(Generating web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This stage of the traffic automation system is not so technically difficult, but it’s quite complicated. It’s not as easy as installing one or two plugins, tweaking some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all of this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of many different parts including your server, your website, and various third-party sites and/or online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we create a simplified diagram of the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a better look at these areas.
Your Server – Configuration
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for site installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about fine-tuning settings in your web server specifically for handling web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your webhosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the traffic your site can attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for both bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like configuring spam protection and securing server files, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess and error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After checking your web server settings and configuring these, the next step is to configure a number of external sites and services.
Configuring External Web Properties
The basic idea of choosing external sites is that all content will be posted to a central location (your site) and from there, it will syndicate automatically to other components of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external services have been added to your system, content with links pointing back to your website will be automatically syndicated to search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and site will be exposed to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of the sites will need to be set up before configuring your site’s settings to 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 site’s settings:
Google Search Console
(Google Search Console)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of essential information, SEO tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
After setting up your account and entering site details, the details can be used with traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s traffic results, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrals, etc.
After setting up your account and site details, you can add tracking information to all of your pages in WordPress using a plugin and feed data instantly to various other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your account and entering site data, you can use this information to automate traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress provides users with a self-hosted (WordPress.org) and a hosted (WordPress.com) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to grow a professional online presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which a number of WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your web traffic generation system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and attract new traffic to your site)
You will need your various social 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 pages and bring new visitors to your site.
You should have accounts with all the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose those that will work well with your system and/or content sharing tools (we cover some of these tools in more detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(There are many social bookmarking sites you can post your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online web platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as second-tier traffic generation sources. 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 your WordPress site feed …
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 RebelMouse page.
There are many different platforms you can add to your own web traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up third-party site accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
Configuring WordPress For Traffic
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
WordPress – Global Settings
The WordPress admin area contains a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains a powerful and often overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Area)
As stated in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have intentionally configured your site settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the list of services entered into the Update Services box
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is listed …
(Writing Settings – Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of update services to this section and WordPress takes care of the rest …
(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 readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can have an influence traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could affect someone’s decision to explore your site 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.
The main setting here as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is enabled or not.
Normally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows your site to ping your update services list whenever new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, do not check this box …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings Screen)
Discussion
Although discussion settings are 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
Permalinks allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks Screen)
Here are some of the options for configuring your site’s search-friendly URLS …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
If you need help setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO With Permalinks
Configuring Settings – WordPress Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that help to add almost every kind of functionality imaginable to your website, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site 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 cannot afford to ignore the importance of securing your websites.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to botnet and hacker attacks.
For more information, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your site’s SEO …
(SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your site more search engine friendly)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your SEO. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines to find, crawl and index, it also lets you specify how to display your content in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content with their social networks 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 website with free or inexpensive plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their site with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Many social plugins let you specify which 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 plugins even allow you to protect content or downloads which visitors can unlock by liking your page.
Configuring 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, in addition to options and settings for configuring layout and design elements of your website, some themes also include built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for better indexing, add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in traffic optimization features)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing buttons to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
Additional Features To Configure For Better Traffic Results
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic system configuration process, are the components 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 for how to deal with good and bad 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 do any kind of business online (or plan to), you need to make sure that your website complies with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?)
If you need help understanding how to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your site, refer to this article:
Post Tags & Categories
Categories and tags help search engines index your pages, which improves traffic.
(Categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search engine optimization.)
As we recommend in this article, your site’s post tags and categories should be discussed and set up during the Website Planning Process.
When considering ways to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post categories and tags have been correctly set up to deliver optimal benefits and results.
A Site Map Of Your Pages and Posts
A site map that lists all of your posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites find more of your online content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. Only search engine bots can understand XML sitemaps. Although search engines like Google can index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
404 Page – Don’t Forget To Configure It!
When visitors searching for your website type in the wrong URL or click on links pointing to destinations on your website that no longer exist, they will normally be greeted with an error – page not found message (known as a 404 page) …
(A WordPress 404 Not Found page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found page can be set up in your web server, there are WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your website or blog has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you then have to do is post great content on a regular basis to start driving web traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of a number of different elements and web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take some website professionals months to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as can be automated. This step is addressed in the next section of our WordPress Traffic System series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read more, click here:
This article is part of an article series designed to help you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively and drive traffic sustainably using a WordPress-powered website and proven web marketing methods.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)
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