Welcome to Part 3 of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a site into an automated traffic generation machine using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this article series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do is add great content on a consistent basis to begin bringing new traffic!)
In Part 2, we discussed the setup phase. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your website has been built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we look at the configuration phase of the WordPress traffic automation system. You will learn how a WordPress site should be configured in order to get visitors automatically simply by consistently adding web content on your site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Configuration Phase
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With business getting so much more competitive on a global scale, it’s worth looking into every opportunity you can to improve your own results online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous advantage over other competitors. An expertly configured WordPress site gives your business an immediate advantage from the word “go”.
The Difference Is In The Way Your Site Is Configured
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer.
Here is a simple way to understand the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a web presence plus an automated online business marketing tool!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
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.
Let’s illustrate this with an amusing story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
Everything is humming along in the gizmo-making plant when suddenly, things grinds to a halt.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the manager decides to call in an expert.
Promptly after arriving, the expert goes immediately to the control box. After staring silently at the wiring board for about 2 minutes, the expert then produces a tiny little hammer and makes a gentle tap about three inches from the right corner of the unit.
Immediately, the plant springs back to life.
The manager is overjoyed as he thanks the expert, who leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the factory manager receives a request for payment of $5,000.
Feeling furious, the factory manager rings the expert. Demanding to know why they were expected to pay such a large amount of money for so little time spent delivering such minimal amount of work, he then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrives on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new traffic to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the factory stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one on the factory floor was able to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to demand fair compensation for having spent years building up the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to immediately avert a very serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a WP web site set up so all you had to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other online properties would be automatically notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your website?)
While the solution to many challenges can seem ridiculously easy once implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than installing a website and configuring a few internal settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which plugins you need to install to get various functionalities on your site.
- Which 3rd-party accounts you need to set up and activate to achieve certain outcomes
- Which settings you need to configure to ensure that everything will function as expected, etc.
(Driving new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this stage of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem so technically difficult, it can be quite complicated. The reason why is because it’s not as simple as installing and configuring a piece of software, clicking on a button or two … it’s all of this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of many parts including your web server, your web site, and various third-party sites and services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart of the configuration phase)
Let’s examine what’s involved.
Server Configuration
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your hosting account for installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings in your hosting account that affect how you will handle all web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the web traffic you can attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like configuring server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess and 404 redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After your web server settings have been checked and configured (if required), the next step is to configure various third-party sites and/or online services.
External Sites & Solutions – Configuration
The concept behind choosing external sites is that all content should be published to one central location (your site) and from there, it will automatically get syndicated to other components of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After incorporating these external sites into your traffic system, content with links pointing back to your website will be automatically syndicated to search, social and aggregator sites. Your website will then be given added exposure to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some external sites and online services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress 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 settings:
Google Search Console
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly website or blog)
Google Search Console lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of important information, tools and reports about your website.
Once your account and site details with Google Search Console are set up, you can use your details to automate traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and organic referrers, etc.
After setting up your account and site details, you can add visitor tracking code to all of your web pages in WordPress using a simple Google Analytics plugin and feed data instantly to other applications and web properties.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your account and entering site data, the account details can be used with traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers website owners the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you are planning to grow a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which various 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 traffic generation system in Part Four of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and drive new visitors to your site)
You will need to set up your various social accounts 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 bring new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have accounts and profiles set up with all of the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can You can post your content to many social sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select those that will work with your system and/or content sharing tools (we will look at some of these tools in greater detail during the Automation phase).
(There are many social sites you can post your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add an RSS feed from your website …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your own RebelMouse account.
There are various technologies and third-party applications that can be incorporated into your 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 web server and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure WordPress.
WordPress – Configuring Your Web Site
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global Settings – WordPress
Your WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains an important and often overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Screen)
As described in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have specifically chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the list of services entered into the Update Services section
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 …
(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
***
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 web traffic. For example, your choice to display the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could play a part in 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 summaries, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The main setting in this section as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Generally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows your site to instantly ping the update services list when new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit 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 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 …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your permalink URLs …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
If you need help setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: Configuring WordPress Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that can add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your site, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No site is guaranteed immunity from being hacked.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
To learn more, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web pages easier for search engines like Google to index …
(WP SEO Plugin – Yoast SEO)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (previously known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your site’s search engine optimization. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google to index, it allows you to specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content with their social networks can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social features to their site with free or inexpensive plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their website with WordPress plugins.
Many social sharing plugins let you specify which social sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some plugins even allow you to protect content or downloads which visitors can unlock by liking your page.
WordPress – Traffic Generation Theme Features
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 design and layout elements of your site, many themes also give you built-in features that let you improve SEO and site navigation structure for faster indexing, add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes include built-in traffic optimization features)
With many themes, adding social sharing features to your site 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 Areas
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.
These include:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with bad and good traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business as more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you make money online, you need to make sure that your website complies with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Comply With The Law?)
If you need help understanding how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your WordPress website or blog, go here:
WordPress Post Tags & Post Categories
Post categories and tags help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better organize and index your website.
(Categories help search engines index your pages, which helps to increase traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your site’s post tags and categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Stage.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the tags and categories that have been set up.
Add A Site Map
A site map that lists all of your pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools discover your online content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. Although search engines like Google will index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
Your WordPress 404 Error Page
When visitors searching online for your website type in the wrong web address or click on a link pointing to an incorrect destination on your website, they are presented with a 404 error page …
(A WordPress 404 Error Page)
A 404 page can be configured to funnel visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found page can be set up on your server, there are several WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your website fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do then is post new content consistently to automatically attract more traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of various elements and external web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The skills and expertise required to perform this phase of the traffic automation process can take some web developers months 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 addressed in the next section of our series.
This is the end of Section Three
To read more, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping small business owners learn how to grow their business online cost-effectively with a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven web marketing strategies.
Subscribe To Our Site And Get Notified Of New Tutorials!
***
"Your training is the best in the world! It is simple, yet detailed, direct, understandable, memorable, and complete." Andrea Adams, FinancialJourney.org
***