Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated web traffic generating machine using WordPress.
In Part 1 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 blog, all you have to do is post great content on a regular basis to automatically attract new traffic!)
In Part 2, we focused on critical setup decisions. We explained the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set everything up if you already have a website, and what to do if your site was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we will discuss the configuration phase of the traffic blueprint. The focus of this section is to help you understand why an expertly configured site is different from a professionally configured one. You will also learn how much work is required to make sure that when everything is fully set up and configured, you will attract traffic automatically when you begin to post fresh content on a regular basis to your site.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by business owners as the greatest challenge they face online. Businesses are becoming so much more competitive worldwide and are looking for any and every opportunity they can to increase their competitiveness online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a huge competitive advantage. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website means having a significant advantage from the very start.
The Difference Is In The Configuration Process
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website 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 describe the differences:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence plus an automated online business marketing process!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only does it take more work to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special kind of expert knowledge.
To illustrate this point here’s a little story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
Everything was going fine in the gizmo factory when things suddenly stopped.
No one could figure out what happened and so the floor manager decided to call in an expert.
The expert arrived shortly after being summoned and, without uttering a word, immediately walked towards the control box. After staring at the electronic components for 5 minutes, the expert then took out a tiny little hammer and made a very gentle tap near the right side of the unit.
Immediately, everything began to work as before.
The plant manager was delighted as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the factory manager received a request of payment for services for the sum of $5,000.
The manager dialed the expert, demanding to know why the expert had charged them so much for less than 5 minutes work. He then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrived on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive traffic to their sites.
How much money did the widget factory stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one in the factory floor was able to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to demand fair compensation for spending years developing the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to assess and repair a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your WordPress site configured so all you have to do is publish new content and search engines, social networks and dozens of other traffic-generating web 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 site?)
While the solution to many problems is often quite easy once it’s been implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring some basic settings. It involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install to get certain functionalities on your site.
- Which services you need to set up and activate to get specific outcomes
- Which settings need to be configured to ensure that things will work as planned, etc.
(Generating traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This stage of the traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite complicated. The reason why is because it’s not as simple as installing and configuring one or two plugins, tweaking some options and settings in your dashboard area or clicking a button … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration stage is a complex process that involves your server, your site, and a number of external sites and online services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If the activities involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplistic flowchart showing the configuration process)
Let’s examine these steps.
Your Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web hosting account for website installation purposes. We’re talking about tweaking settings in your web hosting account that affect how you will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your web server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the traffic you may attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for both good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like configuring spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like emails, page error redirects, etc?)
After checking your web server settings and configuring these, the next step is to configure various third-party sites and services.
Configuring External Sites
The concept behind setting up external sites is that all of your content should be posted 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 services.
Once these external sites have been added to your setup, content linked back to your site is automatically fed to search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and website will be given exposure to a new audience and new sources of traffic.
Some of the sites will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress site to help 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)
Google Webmasters lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with a range of useful data, tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
After setting up your account, this information can be used with web traffic-related settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site data have been set up, you can add tracking code to WordPress using a simple plugin and send data automatically to many other online applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your account and site details with Bing Webmaster Tools have been set up, this information can be used to automate web traffic-related settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers website owners the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. 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 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 traffic generation system in Part Four of this series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and drive new traffic to your site)
You will need your social accounts set up in order to 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 and social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors to your site.
You should set up profiles with all of the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select the ones that will work well with your system and/or content syndication tools (we will look at some of these tools in greater detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(You can post your content to lots of social sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online technology platforms and content aggregators that can act as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free levels, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your page.
There are many different technologies and third-party applications you can incorporate into your own traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you would like to explore some of these and discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with external services, it’s time to configure your site’s settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
Global WordPress Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most important and often overlooked traffic notification systems available to WordPress users …
(WordPress 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 configured your settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the list of services entered into the Update Services section
By default, this section lists only one entry …
(Writing Settings – WordPress Update Services)
You can 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 in this section can influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could affect someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website or 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 most important setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Generally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables WordPress to automatically notify various update services when new posts get 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 …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion Settings
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 articles, 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 Section)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the ways your SEO-friendly URLs can be configured …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
If you need help setting up permalinks in WordPress, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: Changing Your WordPress Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
WordPress provides users with 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 some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. No website or blog is immune from cyber-attacks.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
Go here for more information:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website …
(WP SEO Plugin – Yoast SEO)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your site’s search engine optimization. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google and Bing to index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed to Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
There are loads of free or inexpensive social sharing plugins available for WordPress.
Many social sharing plugins allow you to select which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your pages which users can unlock by liking your page.
WordPress Theme Settings
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring design and layout elements of your site, some themes also include built-in features that let you improve SEO and site navigation structure for faster indexing, easily add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes come with built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing features to your site is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features)
Additional Configuration Features For Your WordPress Site
Last but not least in the web traffic system configuration process, are the elements that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both good and unwelcome traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online, you need to ensure that your site is found to comply with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Site Compliant?)
If you need help understanding how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your WordPress site, refer to this article:
Post Tags And Categories
Post tags & post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better organize and index your web pages.
(WordPress post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your pages.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your website’s tags and categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Process.
When looking at ways to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the categories and tags that have been set up.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A site map that lists all of your site’s posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools discover more of your website content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. HTML site maps provide visitors with a visual map of how your content is structured, whereas XML sitemaps contain code that only search bots can interpret. Although search engines like Google can index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – Don’t Forget To Configure It!
When visitors type in the wrong URL or click on a dead link, they will normally be greeted with an error page (known as a 404 Not Found page) …
(A 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover web 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 error page can be set up on your server, there are several plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your site has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do then to start generating more web traffic is add content consistently.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of various components and external web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes many web developers a long time 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 covered in the next article in our series.
This is the end of Section Three
To read more, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive tutorial series designed to help business owners learn how to grow their business online inexpensively and drive traffic sustainably with a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven online marketing strategies.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)
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