Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated traffic generating machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part 1 of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do to attract new traffic is add content on a regular basis!)
In Part Two, we looked at critical setup decisions. We explained the best way to get started if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your existing website has been built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we look at the configuration stage of the traffic system. You will understand why an expertly configured WordPress site is different. You will also discover what type of work needs to be done to make sure that when all is set up and configured, you can automatically start driving new visitors just by posting fresh content to your WordPress site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by website owners as their greatest challenge online. With business getting increasingly more competitive worldwide, it’s worth exploring any opportunity you can to increase your own competitiveness online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a huge competitive advantage. With an expertly configured website, you have an immediate competitive advantage from the word “go”.
The Configuration Stage Is What Makes The Difference
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 take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here’s a simple way to understand the differences:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing tool!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence with an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only does a whole lot more work go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special kind of expertise.
To illustrate this point here’s a little story.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
Things were running smoothly in the widget assembly factory when all of a sudden, the equipment stopped.
No one could figure out what was wrong and so the plant manager decided to call in an expert.
The expert arrived soon afterwards and immediately headed to the control box. After staring at the wiring board for 5 minutes, the expert then took out a teensy-weensy hammer and made a single tap about 3 inches from the bottom-left edge of the unit.
Immediately, the assembly line came back to life.
The plant manager was relieved as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the factory manager received a request for payment of $5,000.
The manager called the expert, demanding to know why they had been charged such a large amount of money for so little time delivering a minimal amount of work. He then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrived on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new visitors consistently to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the widget plant stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one in the business was able to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have every right to get paid fairly for investing years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to immediately assess and avert a very serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your WordPress website set up and configured so all you have to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other web properties would be immediately notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your website?)
While experts often make difficult things look simple, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few internal settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which plugins need to be installed to add desired functionalities to your site.
- Which third-party accounts you need to set up to get desired outcomes
- Which settings need to be configured in order to make sure things work the way you have planned, etc.
(Driving new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This stage of the WordPress traffic automation system is not technically challenging, but it’s quite complicated. It’s not as simple as installing and configuring a solution, clicking on a button or two … it’s all this and so much more.
The configuration stage is a process that involves your web server, your web site, and a number of external sites or online services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplified diagram showing the activities involved in the configuration process)
Let’s examine what’s involved.
Web Server Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for website installation purposes. We’re talking about configuring settings and options in your web server that affect how you will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic your site may attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for both good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email forwarding, setting up 404 error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After your server settings have been checked and configured, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites or online services.
3rd-Party Sites Integration
The idea behind choosing external sites is that all of your content will get published to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will be distributed automatically to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external services have been added to your traffic system, content linking back to your website is automatically posted to these platforms, indexed by search engines and distributed to social networks, even to visitors attracted to the platform itself. Your content and website will receive increased exposure online, helping you tap into a new audience and source of traffic.
Some of the external sites and services will need to be set up before configuring your settings to 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 WordPress site:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Search Console lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with important information, tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
Once your account with Google Webmasters have been set up, you can use this information to automate web traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s traffic results, SEO, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, you can add visitor tracking information to all of your pages in WordPress via a plugin and feed data instantly to many other online applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your account with Bing Webmaster Tools have been set up, the account information can be used with web traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress 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 option if you plan to grow a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate these features into your automated traffic system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and bring new traffic to your site)
You will need to have already set up your various social accounts 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 and social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have accounts set up with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are many social sites you can You can post your content to lots of social sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose those that will work well with your setup and/or content syndication tools (we will review some of these tools in greater detail further below and in the Automation phase).
(You can syndicate your content to many social sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging technology platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free plans, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your RebelMouse website.
There are many different technologies and third-party applications that can be incorporated into your traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore this area further and discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with external services, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website Or Blog
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
WordPress – Global Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains an important and often overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Area)
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 discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is listed …
(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 …
(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 visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can influence traffic. For example, your choice to display the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could affect someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your blog to read 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 your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Typically, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to automatically notify the update services list when a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, do not check this box …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings Screen)
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 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)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to publish posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the ways your site’s permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring permalinks)
To learn more about setting up permalinks, go here: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO Using Permalinks
WordPress Traffic Plugin Settings – Configuration
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that help to add almost every kind of functionality imaginable to your website, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more traffic to your site
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for handling 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 simply cannot afford to ignore the importance of web security.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to hackers and bots.
Go here to learn more:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web content easier for search engines like Google to index …
(Yoast SEO – WP Plugins For SEO)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your website’s SEO. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google to find and index, it also lets you configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content with members of their own social communities can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you post content that adds 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 using 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 default update notifications, 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 visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
Theme Settings
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 website, many themes also give you built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for faster indexing, easily add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes include built-in traffic optimization features)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your website is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features)
Configuring Other WordPress Areas
Last but not least in the WordPress traffic configuration process, are the things that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and unwanted traffic but also for all the situations that can damage your business when more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you do business online (or plan to), it’s important that your website is found to comply with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
If you need help understanding how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress site, see this article:
Post Categories & Tags
Post tags & post categories help search engines better organize and index your pages, which helps you get more traffic.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better organize and index your pages.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your website’s tags and categories should be discussed and set up during the Website Planning Phases.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s categories and tags have been set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A site map that displays all of your site’s posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites find your site’s content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. Although Google can 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 results in increased traffic.
404 Page Not Found – Don’t Lose Traffic!
When online users enter the wrong URL or click on a dead link, they will normally be presented with a 404 error page …
(A 404 Error Page)
A 404 page can be configured into a useful source of traffic to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your web server, there are WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your WordPress site expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do then is add new content on a regular basis to begin bringing new web traffic.
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 external web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The skills and expertise required to perform the configuration stage of the traffic automation process can take many website developers a long time to learn.
Once you have 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 section of our series.
This is the end of Part 3
To continue reading this article, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials designed to help business owners learn how to grow their business online and drive traffic organically using a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven marketing methods that are easy and quick to implement.
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"I am beyond impressed with what you have put together. I can tell that you put a ton of hard work into building what you have. You have the absolute best content on WordPress I have ever seen!" - Robert T. Jillie
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