Welcome to Part 3 of our WordPress Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new visitors automatically to your website using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this article series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do to automatically attract new web traffic is post great content regularly!)
In Part Two, we focused on critical setup decisions. 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 website, and what to do if your website has been built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we will discuss the configuration stage of the traffic blueprint. We explain how a WordPress site should be configured in order to ensure that visitors will automatically start flowing when you begin publishing fresh content on your web site.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
The ability to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as their greatest challenge online. Also, the business landscape is becoming so much more competitive worldwide and businesses are looking for any advantage they believe will help them get better results online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous advantage over the competition. For WordPress users, an expertly configured website allows their business to get off to a flying start from the moment their website is launched.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to explain the main difference:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence with online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only does it take additional work to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special type of expert knowledge.
To illustrate this here is a joke.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
Everything is going fine in the gizmo workshop when all machinery suddenly stops.
No one can figure out what’s wrong and so the floor manager decides to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Promptly after arriving, the expert immediately heads to the control box. After staring at the board for 2 minutes, the expert then produces a teeny-weeny hammer and makes a gentle tap near the right corner of the control unit.
Immediately, everything springs to life once more.
The floor manager is greatly overjoyed as he thanks the expert, who leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the factory manager receives a service bill for $5,000.
Bordering on outrage, the manager dials the expert. Demanding to know why they were charged such a large amount of money for less than 5 minutes work, he promptly requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrives and is placed in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive web traffic consistently to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when production stopped functioning and no one on the business had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to ask to be compensated fairly for investing years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to fix a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a WP site configured so all you ever had to do is publish new content 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 site?)
Although the solution to many challenges is often quite easy once it’s been implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring some basic settings. It involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which plugins need to be installed for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which third-party services you need to set up to get certain results
- Which settings you need to configure to ensure that things will function as envisioned, etc.
(Driving 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 involved. It’s not as easy as installing a solution, tweaking some options and settings in your admin area or clicking a button … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration phase involves the integration of different parts such as your web hosting server, your site, and various external sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If the activities involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplistic diagram of the activities involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these areas in more detail.
Web Hosting
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web hosting account for site installation purposes. We’re talking about tweaking settings and options in your web server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your web server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic your website can attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect 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 configuring server-level spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
After your server settings have been checked and configured, the next step is to set up and configure various external sites.
Integration With External Accounts
The basic concept of setting up external sites is that all of your content is published to one central location (your site) and from there, it syndicates automatically to other components of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you incorporate these external sites into your system, content linking back to your website will be automatically syndicated to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your business will be exposed to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some sites and 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, here are just some of the accounts you will need to have set up before configuring your settings:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmasters – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with useful information, tools, and reports about their website.
Once your Google Webmaster Tools account and site details have been set up, use the details with web traffic-related settings 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 site’s traffic results, SEO, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site data are set up, you can add traffic tracking code to WordPress using a simple plugin and feed data instantly to other online applications.
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 have been set up, you can use this information with traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you are planning to build a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your automated web traffic system in Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and drive new visitors to your site)
You will need your various social media accounts set up in order to integrate these with 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 traffic to your site.
You should have accounts set up with all of the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are many social sites you can set up and post your content to. You don’t need to go crazy, just pick those that will work with your setup and/or content sharing tools (we will review some of these tools in more detail further below and during the Automation phase).
(There are many social sites you can post your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as secondary 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 allows you to add a feed from your website …
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 RebelMouse website.
There are many different solutions that can be added to your web traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore this area further and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure your WordPress settings.
Configuring Your WordPress Site For Traffic
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to ensure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
WordPress Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains an important and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings Section)
As stated 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 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 text box
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is listed …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress – just add a list containing all of the update services you want notified to this section …
(Notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress!)
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 your content gets seen by readers 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 content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could play a part in someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your blog to get the rest of the content from excerpts, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
As far as traffic is concerned, however, the most important setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows your site to ping various update services whenever new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, leave this box unchecked …
(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 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings Section)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your search-friendly URLS …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
To learn more about setting up permalinks, go here: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO With SEO-Friendly URLs
Plugin Settings
WordPress provides users with plugins that can add just about every kind of functionality imaginable to your website, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Let’s look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. No blog is immune from a cyber-attack.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to malicious attacks from hackers and botnets.
More info:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your website more search engine friendly …
(WP Plugin – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your site’s search engine optimization. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google to find, classify and index, it also lets you specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content with others online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if your site provides great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social sharing to your site easily using free or inexpensive plugins)
There are loads of social sharing plugins available for WordPress.
Many social plugins allow you to specify which social sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your site which users can unlock by liking your page.
Configuring WordPress Traffic Generation Theme Features
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring design and layout elements of your website, some themes also give you built-in options for improving search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, easily add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) allow you to configure options and settings for improved traffic results)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing features to your content is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons to configure your options and enable the feature …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic Automation – Other Aspects To Consider
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic configuration process, are the areas that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to handle good and unwanted traffic but also for all the situations that can cause serious damage to your business when more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online, you need to make sure that your site is found to comply with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
We have written a detailed article about how to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your site here:
WordPress Post Categories & Tags
Tags & post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your pages.
(WordPress post categories help search engines better classify and index your pages, which improves traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your site’s categories and tags should be set up during the Website Planning Stage.
When configuring your website to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post categories and tags have been correctly set up to deliver optimal benefits and results.
A Site Map Of Your Posts And Pages
A site map that displays all of your site’s pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications find more of your website content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. Although Google will index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – A Source Of Lost Traffic Opportunities!
When visitors enter the wrong web address or click on hyperlinks pointing to pages on your site that no longer exist, they will normally be greeted with an error page (known as a 404 Not Found page) …
(A 404 Not Found page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found page can be set up on your web server, there are several WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your website or blog expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do then is add web content on a consistent basis to start generating new web traffic.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of a number of different components and web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of skills and knowledge required to perform the configuration phase of the traffic automation process can take some web professionals months to acquire.
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 explained in the next section of the WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section Three
To keep reading, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively with a WordPress-driven website and proven marketing strategies that are easy and quick to implement.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum
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