Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated traffic machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part One of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do is post new content consistently to automatically start generating more web traffic!)
In Part 2, we focused on the setup phase of the blueprint. We helped you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a website yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your website was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we discuss the configuration phase of the WordPress traffic automation system. We explain how to configure a WordPress site to ensure that new visitors will automatically start flowing when you begin to post new content regularly to your website.
WordPress Traffic System – Configuration
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as their greatest challenge online. With competition becoming increasingly more difficult businesses are exploring any opportunity they can to increase their competitiveness online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a huge advantage over the competition. For business owners, having an expertly configured website gives WordPress users a flying start as soon as their website is launched.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally installed and set up by an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to describe the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a professional web presence with online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only are more steps needed to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special type of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with an anecdote.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
All is going fine in the widget factory when everything grinds to a sudden stop.
No one can figure out what’s wrong and so the manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
The expert arrives shortly afterward and heads immediately towards the main control box. After staring at the control unit for 5 minutes, the expert then produces a tiny little hammer and makes a gentle tap near the right side of the unit.
Immediately, the assembly line comes back to life.
The floor manager is grateful and relieved as he thanks the expert, who leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager receives an invoice for the amount of $5,000.
Feeling furious, the manager picks up the phone and calls the expert. Why had they had been charged such a ludicrous fee for less than five minutes work? He then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment 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 consistently drive visitors to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the plant stand to lose when production stopped working and no one in the factory floor had the expertise required to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have the right to demand fair compensation for investing years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to quickly fix a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your site set up so all you had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social media and dozens of other traffic-generating 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 driving traffic to your site?)
While many experts often make complex situations and problems look simple, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to figure things out.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than installing a website and configuring some basic settings. It requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which plugins need to be installed to add specific functionalities to your site.
- Which services you need to set up to achieve specific results
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure to make sure everything works as you have imagined, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this stage of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem so technically challenging, it can be quite involved. It’s not as simple as installing and configuring a piece of software, clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all of this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a process that involves your web hosting server, your website, and a number of third-party sites …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we create a simplified flowchart of all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified diagram showing the configuration process)
Let’s examine these steps.
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 configuring settings in your web hosting account specifically for handling web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the traffic you can attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like server-level spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, page error redirects, etc?)
Once your web server settings have been checked and configured (if required), the next step is to set up and configure various external sites.
Integration With External Accounts
The basic concept of choosing external sites is that all content should be published to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, get distributed automatically to other components of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
After adding these external sites to your configuration, content with links pointing back to your site gets automatically added to these platforms, indexed by search engines and distributed to social sites, even to users of the platform itself. Your content and website will benefit from added exposure online, helping you tap into a new audience and traffic source.
Some third-party web properties and online services will need to have accounts 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:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Search Console)
Google Search Console lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with a range of essential information, SEO tools and reports about your website.
After setting up your account and entering site details with Google, the details can be used to integrate and automate web traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s traffic performance, SEO, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and social media referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, your account information can be added to all pages in WordPress using a simple Google Analytics plugin and automatically fed to other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your account and site data with Bing Webmaster Tools are set up, use your information with web traffic-related settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers both a hosted and a self-hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you are planning to build a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate these features into your traffic 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 to set up your social media accounts 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 and social bookmarking accounts and attract new traffic to your site.
Set up profiles with all of the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can post your content to. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just pick those that will work with your system and/or content sharing tools.
(There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of online technology platforms and content aggregators that can act as secondary traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different users.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your social feed.
There are many different sites and platforms that can be incorporated into your own traffic system. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these further, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
WordPress – Configuring Your 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.
Configuring Global WordPress Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and often overlooked built-in traffic notification systems available to WordPress users …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings)
As stated in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have purposely chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the list of services entered into the Update Services field
By default, this section includes only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of all the update services you want to notify as soon as you publish a new post to this section …
(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 Settings
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 text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could play a part in someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your blog to view 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 your traffic system is concerned, however, the main setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is enabled or not.
Generally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows your site to instantly notify the list of update services whenever a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, do not check this box …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion Settings
Although the settings in this section 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 posts, 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
Permalinks allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the ways your site’s permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring post permalinks)
If you need help setting up WP permalinks, go here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
WordPress – Traffic Generation Plugins
WordPress provides users with plugins that can add almost every type of functionality to your website, including traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No blog is safe from being attacked by hackers.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to botnet and hacker attacks.
Go here to learn more:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web content easily indexable …
(WordPress Plugin – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your SEO. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find and index, it also lets you specify how to display your content to Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their site with free or inexpensive plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social features to their website with free or inexpensive plugins.
Most social share plugins allow you to choose which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your pages which users can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Configuring WordPress Theme Settings
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your website, some themes also provide built-in features that let you improve SEO and site navigation structure for faster indexing, add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes have built-in traffic optimization features)
With many themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features)
Other Areas To Configure
Last but not least in the traffic configuration process, are the areas that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with good and unwanted traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you do any type of business online, it’s important that your site complies with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, see this article:
WordPress Post Tags And Categories
WordPress post tags & post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your web pages.
(WordPress post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to classify and index your pages.)
As we recommend in this article, your website’s tags and categories should be set up during the Website Planning Phases.
When considering ways to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s categories and tags have been correctly set up to deliver optimal benefits.
Add A WordPress 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 applications discover more of your website content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. Although 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 can result in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – Don’t Forget To Configure This Too!
When visitors searching online for your site enter the wrong web address or click on a hyperlink pointing to a destination on your site that no longer exists, they will typically be greeted with a 404 error page …
(A WordPress 404 Page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up in your web server, there are several WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your website or blog has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do then is post content regularly to automatically start generating web traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of a number of different elements and web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take many website professionals months to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is covered in the next article in the series.
This is the end of Part Three
To read more, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively and drive traffic sustainably with a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven marketing strategies that are easy to implement.
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