Welcome to Part Three of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part 1 of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do is post web content on a consistent basis to begin bringing web traffic!)
In Part 2, we discussed the setup phase. We helped you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your existing website has been built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In this section, we will look at the configuration stage of the traffic blueprint. You will learn how to configure a WordPress site to ensure that web traffic will automatically start flowing whenever you add fresh content on your website.
WordPress Traffic Automation System – Configuration
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. With business getting ever more competitive on a global scale, it’s worth looking into any advantage that can help you improve your performance and results online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand can be a huge competitive advantage. For businesses, an expertly configured website gives WordPress users a flying start from the moment their site is launched.
The Configuration Phase Is What Makes All 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 describe the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only is more labor required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special type of expertise.
Allow me to illustrate this with an anecdote.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
All was going well in the widget-making factory when all of a sudden, things came to a halt.
No one could figure out what has happened and so the floor manager decided to call in an expert.
The expert arrived soon afterward and, without uttering a word, walked immediately to the control box. After staring silently at the wiring diagrams for about 5 minutes or so, the expert then produced a teeny-weeny hammer and made a very gentle tap near the left side of the box.
Immediately, every machine returned to normal.
The manager was grateful and relieved as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the factory manager received an invoice for the amount of $5,000.
The manager picked up the phone and dialed the expert, demanding to know why they were expected to pay so much for so little time spent delivering such a minimal amount of work and promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrived in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive new traffic to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the factory stand to lose when the machines stopped functioning and no one in the business was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to demand fair compensation for spending years building up the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to quickly avert a potentially costly crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your WP web site configured so all you have to do is publish new content and search engines, social networks and dozens of other web properties would be automatically 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 the solution to many challenges often seems quite easy once it’s been implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site requires more than simply installing a website and configuring settings for clients. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs you need to install to add specific functionalities to your site.
- Which services you need to set up to achieve specific outcomes
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured to ensure that processes will run exactly as you have envisioned, etc.
(Generating traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this part of the traffic automation system may not seem so technically difficult, it can be quite complicated. This is because it’s not as simple as installing and configuring a solution, configuring some options and settings in your admin area … it’s all of this and much more.
The configuration stage is a complex process that involves your web server, your web site, and a number of third-party sites …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplified diagram showing all the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at these steps in more detail.
Configuring The Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for website installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about fine-tuning settings and options in your webhosting account that affect how your website will handle all web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your web-hosting account settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the traffic your site will attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for both good and unwelcome traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like integrating server-level spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After your server settings have been checked and configured, the next step is to configure various external sites and services.
External Web Properties & Solutions – Configuration
The purpose of setting up external sites is that all content is published from a central location (your site) and from there, it radiates outwards automatically to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you incorporate these external sites into your traffic network, content linking back to your website will get automatically posted to search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and site will be exposed to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some sites and online services will need to be set up before configuring your site’s settings to help 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 Webmasters
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with important data, SEO tools, and reports about their website.
Once your account has been with Google are set up, you can use this information with traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s performance, SEO, marketing campaigns, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrals, etc.
After setting up your account, traffic monitoring code can be added to WordPress via a plugin used with other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account has been set up, your details can be used to automate traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers users 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 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 with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your traffic system in Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and drive new traffic to your site)
You will need your various social media accounts set up in order to 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 accounts and attract new traffic to your site.
Set up accounts and profile pages with all the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can set up. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just pick the ones that will work well with your system and/or content sharing tools (we will cover some of these tools in more detail during the Automation phase).
(There are many social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add an RSS feed from your site …
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 RebelMouse social feed.
There are many different technologies and third-party applications that can be added to your traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring this area further, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with third-party services, it’s time to configure WordPress.
WordPress – Configuring Your Web Site For Traffic
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to ensure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
WordPress Settings
The WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most powerful and often overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Section)
As described in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have purposely chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the services entered into the Update Services field
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section includes only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(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 in this section can have an influence web traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could affect someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your site to view 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 your traffic system is concerned, however, the main setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Generally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables WordPress to instantly ping various update services whenever a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, leave this box unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Screen)
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 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings Screen)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your search-friendly URLS …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
If you need help setting up permalinks in WordPress, refer to this tutorial: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
WordPress Traffic Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add almost every kind of functionality imaginable to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Let’s look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can improve traffic generation
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 website or blog is guaranteed immunity from being attacked.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
Go here to learn more:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website …
(WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive traffic by improving your site’s ability to rank better in search engines)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your SEO. When properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines to find and index, it also gives you control over how your content is presented in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content with their social networks can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you provide great content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social features to their site with free or inexpensive plugins)
There are many social sharing plugins to choose from.
Most social plugins allow you to specify which social 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 shares), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to protect content which users can unlock by liking your page.
WP 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 site, many themes also provide built-in features that let you improve SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, easily add analytics code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes include built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing features to your website 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)
Configuring Additional WordPress Sections
Last (but by no means least) in the configuration process, are the components that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both bad and good traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you do business online, you need to ensure that your site is found to comply with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Site Comply With The Law?)
We have written a detailed article about how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website here:
Categories And Post Tags
Post categories & tags help to improve your site’s search engine optimization, which improves traffic.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your pages.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your site’s categories and tags earlier on, during the Website Planning Stages.
When configuring your web site to automate and improve web 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.
HTML Site Map
A site map that lists all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications discover more of your site’s content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. HTML site maps are web pages that link to all other content on your site and provide users with a visual map of how your content is organized, whereas XML sitemaps are mostly filled with code that only search engines can read. Although Google can 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.
404 Error Page – Don’t Forget To Configure It!
When online visitors enter the wrong URL or click on a hyperlink pointing to a page on your website that no longer exists, they will typically be presented with a 404 page …
(Default WordPress 404 Not Found error page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up in your web server, there are WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your website or blog has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do then is publish fresh content on a regular basis to attract new web traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of different components and external web properties …
(WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes some website developers months to acquire.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is explained in the next article in the WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Section Three
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping website owners learn how to grow their business using a WordPress-powered website and proven web marketing methods.
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