Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn your website into an automated web traffic machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part 1 of this article series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do is add fresh content regularly to attract more web traffic!)
In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase. We explained 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 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 phase of this process. We will help you understand what makes an expertly configured site different from a professionally configured one. You will also understand how much work needs to be done to ensure that when all is fully set up and configured, visitors will automatically start flowing when you begin to add fresh content on a consistent basis on your website.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as the greatest challenge they face online. Businesses are becoming increasingly more competitive on a global scale and are exploring any and every opportunity they can to increase their competitiveness online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous competitive advantage. Having an expertly configured WordPress site gives you an immediate advantage from the word “go”.
The Difference Is In The Configuration Process
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here is a simple way to understand the differences:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a web presence with online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only does a whole lot more work go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special kind of expertise.
Allow me to illustrate this point with an amusing anecdote.
Knowing Where To Tap
Things were going fine in the gizmo manufacturing plant when production suddenly came to a complete stop.
No one could figure out what has happened and so the floor manager decided to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Shortly after arriving, the expert headed out directly to the main control box. After staring silently at the control unit for no more than 2 minutes, the expert then produced a little hammer and made a single tap near the top-left side of the control unit.
Immediately, everything started working as before.
The manager was greatly relieved as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager received a request for payment of $5,000.
The manager dialed the expert, demanding to know why they were being charged so much for less than five minutes work and then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrived in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The number one 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 plant stand to lose when production stopped functioning and no one on the business was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have the right to get paid fairly for having spent years developing the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to immediately assess and avert a potentially costly crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a web site set up and configured so all you have to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube 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 website?)
Although the solution to many challenges often seems quite easy once it’s been implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring settings for clients. It also involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which plugins need to be installed for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which third-party services you need to set up and activate to get specific results
- Which settings you need to configure to ensure that things function to plan, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not so technically challenging, but it’s quite complicated. It’s not as simple as installing a piece of software, clicking a button … it’s all of this and much more.
The configuration stage is a complex process that involves your server, your website, and a number of external sites and services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we were to create a simplified flowchart of the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic flowchart showing all the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s examine these steps.
Configuring Your 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 web-hosting account specifically for handling web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your 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 web traffic you can attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for good and bad traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like integrating server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess and error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After checking your web server settings and configuring these, the next step is to set up and configure various third-party sites and/or online solutions.
External Services
The idea behind choosing external sites is that all content should be posted to a central location (your site) and from there, be automatically distributed to other parts of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you add these external services to your network, content linked back to your site will get automatically added to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and website will benefit from exposure online, helping your business tap into new sources of traffic.
Some of the sites will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress site’s settings 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 site:
Google Search Console
(Google Webmasters)
Google Webmasters lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of useful information, SEO tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
Once your Google Search Console account is set up, you can use your information to integrate and automate traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s traffic performance, SEO, marketing campaigns, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site details have been set up, visitor tracking information can be added to WordPress via a plugin and instantly sent to other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your account is set up, you can use the details with traffic-related settings and notifications 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 provides users with a self-hosted and a hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you plan to grow a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your web traffic system in Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and attract new visitors to your site)
You will need to set up your various social media and social bookmarking 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 sites and social bookmarking accounts and drive new visitors to your site.
Set up accounts and profile pages with all of the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can You can syndicate your content to many social sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools.
(There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of online technology platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add a feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute your content to social networks)
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 RebelMouse website.
There are various platforms you can incorporate into your own traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with external services, it’s time to configure your site.
Configuring Your WordPress Site
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 points.
Configuring WordPress Settings
The WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and often overlooked traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings)
As described in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have specifically configured your site settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the update services entered into the Update Services field
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, this section lists only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
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 on this page can have an influence web traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could impact someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog to view the rest of the content from summaries, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
As far as traffic is concerned, however, the main setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Normally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to notify your update services list when a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, do not check this box …
(Settings Menu – 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 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)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks Screen)
Here are some of the options for configuring your site’s permalink URLs …
(Configuring permalinks)
We have written a detailed tutorial on using permalinks here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Configuring Settings – WordPress Plugins
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that can add just about every kind of functionality to your website, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site 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, securing your website or blog is something you simply cannot afford to ignore.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets.
More info:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your website more search engine friendly …
(SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive traffic by making your website more search engine friendly)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your SEO. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google to find, crawl and index, it also gives you control over how your content is presented to Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you publish great content that adds value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing to your website with free or inexpensive plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social features to their website using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Most social share plugins allow you to choose which 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 plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your pages which users can unlock by sharing your page.
WordPress – 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, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your site, some themes also provide options for improving search optimization and site linking structure for better indexing, add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes can be configured for better traffic results)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing features to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic Configuration – Additional Areas
Last (but by no means least) in the configuration process, are the areas that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Legal Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic, 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 find and begin to visit your website.
If you are making money online, it’s important that your site is found to comply with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?)
For a detailed article about the importance of having a compliant website, see this article:
Post Categories And Tags
Post categories & tags help to improve your site’s SEO, which improves traffic.
(Post categories help search engines classify and index your website, which improves traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, your website’s post tags and categories should be set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Phase.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and categories that have been set up.
Add A Site Map
A visitor site map that displays all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites find more of your web content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Only search engines can interpret an XML sitemap. Although Google can index your site just using 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 can result in increased traffic.
404 Page – Don’t Lose Traffic!
When visitors type in the wrong URL or click on an invalid link, they are greeted with a 404 page …
(A 404 Error Page)
A 404 Error Page can be configured to funnel traffic to your functional web pages …
(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 on your web server, there are several WordPress plugins 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 need to do to automatically begin bringing traffic is add great content on a regular basis.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of a number of different components and external web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of skills and knowledge required to perform this process can take some website professionals months to acquire.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is addressed in the next section of our WordPress Traffic Blueprint series.
This is the end of Part 3
To keep reading this article, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials aimed at helping business owners learn how to grow their business using a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven web 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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