Welcome to Part 3 of our WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a website into an automated traffic machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do to automatically drive more traffic is add fresh content on a regular basis!)
In Part Two, we discussed critical setup decisions. We helped you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your website was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we look at the configuration phase of the traffic automation process. We will show you how a WordPress site should be configured to automatically attract new visitors as you begin to post fresh content on your site.
WordPress Web Traffic System – Configuration
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. Businesses are becoming increasingly more competitive and are looking for any and every advantage they believe will increase their competitiveness online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand is a huge competitive advantage. With an expertly configured website, you have an immediate advantage from the very start.
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 you.
Here’s a simple way to describe the differences:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a web presence and an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence with an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only are more steps needed to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special kind of expert knowledge.
To illustrate this point here is a story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
Everything is moving along in the gizmo assembly line when things suddenly grinds to a stop.
As no one can figure out what’s wrong, the manager decides to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Soon afterwards, the expert arrives and, without uttering a word, walks immediately towards the main control box. After staring silently at the control unit for no more than 5 minutes, the expert then produces a tiny hammer from his utility belt and makes a single tap near the right side of the control unit.
Immediately, everything inside the plant comes back to life.
The plant manager is greatly overjoyed as he thanks the expert, who leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the manager receives a request of payment for services rendered totalling $5,000.
Bewildered and angry, the factory manager dials the expert. Why were they charged such an exorbitant fee for less than 5 minutes work? He then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrives in the manager’s intray. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new traffic to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the widget factory stand to lose when the machines stopped functioning and no one in the factory floor was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have the right to get paid fairly for investing years developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to quickly assess and avert a very serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a blog set up and configured so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other online properties would be instantly 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?)
Although the solution to many problems may seem quite easy in hindsight, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring basic settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which plugins need to be installed to add certain functionalities to your site.
- Which third-party services you need to set up to achieve desired outcomes
- Which options need to be configured to make sure things function as expected, etc.
(Generating web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This part of the traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite complicated. This is because it’s not as easy as installing a plugin, tweaking some settings in your admin area … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a process that involves your web hosting server, your web site, and a number of external sites and online services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we try to flowchart the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified diagram showing all the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these areas in more detail.
Web Server Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web hosting account for website installation purposes. We’re talking about configuring settings and options in your server that affect how your site will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic your site will attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at 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 email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
After checking your web server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various third-party sites and services.
External Services
The purpose of setting up external sites is that all of your content should be published to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, get automatically distributed to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you add these external services to your setup, content with links pointing back to your website gets automatically fed to search, social and aggregator sites. Your website receives increased exposure online, helping you tap into new sources of traffic.
Some of the web properties and online services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress site to save time and some will need to be done later, during the automation phase.
For example, here are just some of the accounts you will need to have set up:
Google Search Console
(Google Webmasters – create a Google-friendly website or blog)
Google Search Console lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with important data, tools and reports about your website.
After setting up your account and entering site details with Google Webmasters, your details can be used with traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s traffic results, SEO, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account has been set up, tracking information can be added to WordPress via plugins and and fed to other useful applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your account, you can use this information with web traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress offers a self-hosted and a hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you plan to grow a professional web presence.
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 at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate these features into your automated traffic system in Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and drive new visitors to your site)
You will need your social accounts set up before you can configure these as part of your traffic generation system.
After setting up and configuring everything, you will be able to syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and attract new visitors to your site.
You should have accounts and profiles set up with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can set up. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools (we discuss some of these tools in more detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(There are many social bookmarking sites you can post your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging platforms and content aggregators that can serve as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different users.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your page.
There are many different solutions that can be added to your traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up external site accounts, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress – Configuring Your Web Site
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
WordPress Settings
The WordPress admin area contains a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains a powerful and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
As described in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have purposely configured your settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the list of update services entered into the Update Services box
By default, only one service is available …
(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 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 traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content appears 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 site 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.
The most important setting in this section as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows WordPress to instantly ping 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 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 sites 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings Screen)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalinks)
Here are some of the ways your permalink URLs can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
We have written a detailed tutorial on using permalinks here: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO Using SEO-Friendly URLs
Plugin Settings
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add just about every type of functionality to your site, including traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to attract more visitors to your site
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. No matter what kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot ignore the importance of website security.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to malicious attacks from hackers and botnets.
More info:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your site more search engine friendly …
(WP SEO Plugin – Yoast SEO)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your website’s SEO. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find, classify and index, it allows you to specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social features to their website with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
You can easily add social sharing to your site with free or inexpensive plugins.
Many social sharing plugins allow you to specify which sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your pages which users 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 improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, in addition to 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 linking structure for better indexing, easily add analytics code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) can be configured for better traffic results)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your website 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 enabled on with the click of a button)
Additional Configuration Areas For Your WordPress Site
Last but not least in the WordPress traffic configuration process, are the areas that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Website Compliance 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 unwanted traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you do business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website is found to comply with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Legally Compliant?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, go here:
Tags And Categories
WordPress categories and tags help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better organize and index your pages.
(WordPress post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better organize and index your web pages.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your website’s categories and tags earlier on, during the Website Planning Process.
When considering 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 benefits and results.
Visitor Site Map
A site map that lists all of your site’s pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools discover more of your web content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. HTML site maps are web pages that link to all other content on your site and provide readers with a visual map of how your content is structured, whereas XML sitemaps are mostly filled with code that only search bots can read. Although Google will index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
Don’t Forget Your WordPress 404 Page Not Found
When online visitors enter the wrong web address or click on hyperlinks pointing to an incorrect destination on your website, they will typically be greeted with a 404 Not Found page …
(A 404 Not Found page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found error page can be set up in your server, there are plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your website or blog fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do to begin bringing new traffic is add web content on a consistent basis.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of a number of different components and external web properties …
(WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes some web developers 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 addressed in the next article in the WordPress Traffic Automation System 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 designed to help you learn how to grow your business online cost-effectively using a WordPress website and proven marketing strategies that are easy and quick to implement.
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