Welcome to Part Three of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated web traffic generation machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do to automatically start generating web traffic is add new content regularly!)
In Part 2, we focused on critical setup decisions. We helped you understand 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 existing website has been built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we discuss the configuration stage of the traffic system. We will show you how a WordPress site should be configured to ensure that visitors will automatically start flowing when you begin to post new content on your WordPress site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Configuration
The ability to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by website owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Businesses are becoming ever more competitive and are researching any advantage they believe will get better results online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous advantage. An expertly configured website gives your business a flying start as soon as your website is launched.
The Difference Is In The Configuration Process
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to describe the key difference:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence plus an automated online business marketing process!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only are more steps needed to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special type of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with an amusing little story.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
All was going well in the gizmo manufacturing plant when things ground to a sudden stop.
No one could figure out what was wrong and so the floor manager decided to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Promptly after arriving, the expert walked immediately towards the control box. After staring at the schematics for no more than 3 minutes or so, the expert then produced a tiny little hammer and made a very gentle tap near the right corner of the unit.
Immediately, everything returned once again to normal.
The manager was grateful and relieved as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the factory manager received a request for payment of $5,000.
The manager picked up the phone and dialled the expert, demanding to know why they were charged such a large amount of money for so little time delivering a minimal amount of work. He promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice 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 visitors to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the widget factory stand to lose when the equipment stopped working and no one in the factory floor had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to ask to be compensated fairly for spending years developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to assess and fix a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your WP site set up and configured so all you have to do is publish new content and search engines, social media and dozens of other online properties would be automatically notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your website?)
Although 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 is more than installing a website and configuring settings for clients. It also involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs you need to install for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which 3rd-party services you need to set up and activate to achieve specific outcomes
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure to ensure that processes will work as envisioned, etc.
(Generating web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this stage of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem technically challenging, it can be quite involved. This is because it’s not as simple as installing and configuring a piece of software, tweaking some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all of this and much more.
The configuration stage involves the integration of many parts such as your web server, your website, and various third-party sites and/or online services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we were to create a simplified diagram showing all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic diagram of the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at these areas in more detail.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web hosting account for website installation purposes. We’re talking about tweaking settings in your server that affect how you will handle web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your web hosting account settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic you may attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for good and unwanted traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like integrating server-level spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess and 404 redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After checking your server settings and configuring these, the next step is to configure various external sites and services.
Configuring External Services
The idea behind setting up external sites is that all of your content will be posted to a central location (your site) and from there, it will be automatically distributed to other parts of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After adding these external services to your setup, content with links pointing back to your website is automatically fed to these platforms, indexed by search engines and distributed to social networks, even to users of the platform itself. Your business will be exposed to a new audience and new sources of traffic.
Some external sites will need to have accounts set up before configuring your site to speed up the process 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:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly website or blog)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with essential data, SEO tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
After setting up your account, you can use this information to integrate and automate web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s performance, SEO, marketing campaigns, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrers, etc.
After setting up your Google Analytics account, traffic tracking data can be easily integrated with WordPress via a simple plugin and instantly sent to many other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your account and entering site details, use the details with web traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers users a hosted and a self-hosted option. 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 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 these features into your web traffic generation system in Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and get new traffic to your site)
You will need your social media 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 and social bookmarking accounts and attract new traffic to your site.
You should have accounts set up with all the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with and post your content to. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content syndication tools.
(You can syndicate your content to lots of social sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online platforms and content aggregators that can act as secondary sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different user types.
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 displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your RebelMouse social feed.
There are many different solutions that can be added to your web traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these, or to discuss a configuration 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 site’s settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Site
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
Global Settings – WordPress
By default, your WordPress administration area includes a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most important and frequently overlooked traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Area)
As described in this 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 discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the list of update services entered into the Update Services field
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, this section displays only one entry …
(Writing Settings – Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically …
(Notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress!)
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 in this section can have an influence traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could affect someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your blog 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 main setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Normally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows your site to notify various update services when a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, make sure this box is left unchecked …
(WordPress 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings Screen)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow your site to display posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the ways post permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring post permalinks)
We have written a detailed tutorial about using permalinks here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
WordPress Plugin Settings – Configuration
WordPress provides users with plugins that can add just about every kind of functionality to your site, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No site is guaranteed immunity from cyber-attacks.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to botnets and hackers.
To learn more, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web pages more search engine friendly …
(SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help increase traffic by improving your website’s ability to rank better in search engines)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) can improve your SEO. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find, classify and index, it also gives you control over how your content is presented to Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you provide content that adds value to readers.
(You can add social features to your site easily using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
You can easily add social sharing features to your site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Many social sharing plugins let you choose which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some social share plugins even allow you to protect content which users can unlock by sharing your page.
WordPress – Theme Settings
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring layout and design aspects of your website, many themes also give you built-in features that let you improve SEO and site linking structure for better indexing, easily add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes allow you to configure settings and options for improved traffic results)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing buttons to your content is as easy as clicking a few buttons to enable the function …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Configuring Additional WordPress Sections
Last but not least in the configuration process, are the things that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Legal Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle 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 engage in any form of business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website remains compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
We have created a detailed article about how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website here:
Tags And Post Categories
Post categories and tags help improve traffic by allowing search engines to classify and index your website.
(WordPress categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better classify and index your pages.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your website’s post categories and tags earlier on, during the Website Planning Stage.
When looking at ways to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and post categories have been set up correctly to deliver optimal results.
Visitor Site Map
A site map that displays all of your pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites find your online content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Although search engines like Google can index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – Don’t Forget This!
When visitors searching online for your site enter the wrong web address or click on a link pointing to a page on your website that no longer exists, they will typically be greeted with a 404 error page …
(A 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up on your server, there are several plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your website or blog fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do is add content consistently to generate more traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of different components and external web properties …
(WP Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise required to perform this process can take many website professionals months to learn.
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 Automation System series.
This is the end of Section Three
To read the rest of this article, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive tutorial series designed to help website owners learn how to grow their business with a WordPress-driven website and proven marketing methods that are easy and quick to implement.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum
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