Welcome to Part 3 of our WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive traffic automatically to your site using the WordPress CMS platform.
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 blog, all you have to do is post fresh content on a regular basis to automatically begin bringing traffic!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase. 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 website, and what to do if your existing site has been built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In this article, we will look at the configuration phase of this process. You will learn how to configure a WordPress site to automatically start bringing traffic when you publish web content to your WordPress site.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as one of their greatest challenges online. With business becoming increasingly more competitive, it’s worth exploring every opportunity you can to increase your own competitiveness online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous advantage. For WordPress users, an expertly configured website means having an immediate advantage from the very start.
The Configuration Stage Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to explain the difference:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence with an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only are more steps required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special kind of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with a story.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
Things are humming along in the widget assembly plant when all of a sudden, everything comes 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 heads out directly to the control box. After staring at the wiring board for no more than 5 minutes, the expert then takes out a tiny hammer and makes a very gentle tap near the right-hand corner of the unit.
Immediately, everything springs back to life.
The manager is greatly overjoyed as he thanks the expert, who leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the factory manager receives a bill for $5,000.
Confused and bewildered, the manager picks up the phone and dials the expert. Why were they expected to pay so much for less than five minutes work? He promptly requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrives in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is driving new visitors to their sites.
How much money did the widget plant stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one in the factory floor had the expertise required to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have the right to demand fair compensation for spending years acquiring the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to immediately assess and repair a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your blog fully set up so all you have to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other web 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 attracting new visitors to your site?)
Although the solution to many challenges often seems quite simple once it’s been implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than installing a website and configuring a few basic settings. It requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which plugins need to be installed to add specific functionalities to your site.
- Which services need to be set up and activated to get desired outcomes
- Which settings you need to configure to ensure that things will work as expected, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this stage of the traffic automation system may not seem so technically difficult, it can be quite complicated. The reason why is because it’s not just about installing and configuring one or two plugins, clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a complex process that involves your web hosting server, your website or blog, and various third-party sites …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If we try to flowchart the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic diagram of the activities involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these areas in more detail.
Server Configuration
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for website installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is configuring settings and options in your webhosting account that affect how your site will handle all 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 traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic your website will attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for both good and unwanted traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include things like configuring server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like emails, page error redirections, etc?)
Once your web server settings have been checked and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various third-party sites.
External Accounts
The basic idea of choosing external sites is that all content is posted to one central location (your site) and from there, it gets automatically distributed to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external sites have been added to your system, content linked back to your website gets automatically added to these platforms. Your content and website will be given exposure to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of the external sites and services will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress 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’s settings:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmasters)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with important information, SEO tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
Once your account and site data are set up, use your details with traffic settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account has been set up, your account information can be easily integrated with WordPress via a Google Analytics plugin and instantly sent to many other useful applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account and site details are set up, you can use this information to automate web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress provides users with 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.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, which a number of WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your automated web traffic system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and drive new traffic to your site)
You will need to set up your social media 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 drive new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have set up accounts with all of the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to go crazy, just select the ones that will work with your system and/or content sharing tools (we will review some of these tools in more detail in the Automation phase).
(You can post your content to many social sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging technology platforms and content aggregators that can act as secondary-level 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 site that lets you add a feed from your website …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your RebelMouse account.
There are various sites and platforms that can be added to your own web traffic system. Please 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 WordPress.
WordPress Traffic Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
Configuring WordPress Settings
Your WordPress administration area contains a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains an important and often overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Area)
As described below the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have purposely configured your site settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the update services entered into the Update Services field
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is available …
(WordPress Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list containing all of the update services you want notified to this section …
(You can 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
***
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 visitors when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can have an influence traffic. For example, your choice to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could affect someone’s decision to explore your content 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.
The main setting in this section as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is enabled or not.
Normally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables WordPress to automatically notify various update services when a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Section)
Discussion Settings
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 Screen)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow your site to publish posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the ways post permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
If you need help setting up permalinks, see this step-by-step tutorial: Configuring WordPress Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that can add just about every type of functionality imaginable to your site, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more traffic to your site
Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. Regardless of the kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, web security is something you simply cannot afford to ignore.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and bots.
More info:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving improving the way search engines find, crawl and index your website …
(Yoast SEO – WP SEO Plugin)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your site’s SEO. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines to find, crawl and index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content with members of their own online communities can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you provide great content that adds value to readers.
(You can add social sharing to your site easily using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
There are many free or inexpensive social sharing plugins available for WordPress users.
Most social sharing plugins allow you to choose which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content or downloads which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
Configuring WordPress Traffic Features In Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your website, some themes also provide built-in options for improving SEO and site linking structure for faster indexing, add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes allow you to configure settings and options for better traffic results)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing features to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Other Areas To Configure
Last but not least in the WordPress traffic blueprint configuration process, are the components that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to handle good and bad traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you are making money online, you need to make sure that your website is compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business online.
(Does Your Website Comply With The Law?)
We have written a detailed article about how to quickly add legal pages to your site here:
Categories And Tags
Categories and post tags help search engines index your web pages, which improves traffic.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your pages.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your site’s tags and categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Process.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the post categories and tags you have set up.
Add A Site Map To Your WordPress Site
A visitor site map that lists all of your pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications discover more of your website content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Although search engines like Google will index your site just using 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.
Configure Your WordPress 404 Page
When visitors enter the wrong URL or click on hyperlinks pointing to destinations on your site that no longer exist, they are presented with an error – page not found message …
(A WordPress 404 Not Found error page)
A 404 page can be configured to redirect confused visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found error page can be set up on your web server, there are several plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your website expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do then to generate web traffic is publish web content on a consistent basis.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of various components and web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site 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 can be automated. This step is covered in the next section of the series.
This is the end of Part Three
To read the rest of this article, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively using a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven online marketing strategies.
Get Notified When New Tutorials Get Published – Subscribe To Our Site!
***
"I love the way your email series "Infinite Web Content Creation Training Series" is documented and presented. It is very absorbing and captivating. The links and tutorials are interesting and educational. This has motivated me to rewrite my content following the concepts I am learning from the email series." - Mani Raju, www.fortuneinewaste.com
***