Welcome to Part 3 of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a website into an automated web traffic machine using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this article series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do to automatically begin bringing new traffic is add fresh content on a consistent basis!)
In Part Two, we focused on the setup phase of this process. 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 has been built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this article, we look at the configuration phase of the traffic system. You will learn how to configure a WordPress site so you can ensure that new visitors will automatically start flowing whenever you add content on your website.
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by many website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. Also, the business landscape is becoming ever more competitive on a global scale and businesses are researching any advantage they believe will help them get better results online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a huge advantage over other competitors. An expertly configured WordPress site gives you an immediate competitive advantage from the very start.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website 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’s a simple way to explain the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only is extra work required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special type of expert knowledge.
Let me illustrate this with a little story.
Knowing Where To Tap
Things were going well in the gizmo manufacturing plant when everything ground to a sudden halt.
As no one could figure out what was wrong, the manager decided to call in an expert.
The expert arrived shortly afterward and, without uttering a word, immediately went towards the control box. After staring at the box for about 2 minutes or so, the expert then took out a teensy-weensy hammer and made a single tap about 1 inch from the right side of the control unit.
Immediately, everything sprang to life.
The manager was greatly relieved as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of 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 charged so much for less than five minutes work. He promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrived in the manager’s intray. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive visitors to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo factory 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 in our story not have the right to be compensated fairly for investing years building up the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to avert a crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your website configured so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social sites and dozens of other online properties would be immediately 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 attracting new visitors to your site?)
Although experts often make complex solutions look easy, 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! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which programs need to be installed to add specific functionalities to your site.
- Which accounts need to be set up and activated to achieve specific results
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured in order to ensure that things will work as envisioned, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this stage of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem technically challenging, it can be quite involved. This is because it’s not just about installing a plugin, configuring some settings in your admin area … it’s all of this and so much more.
The configuration stage involves the integration of various different components such as your web hosting server, your website or blog, and a number of external sites and/or online services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic flowchart showing the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these areas.
Configuring Your Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for installation purposes. We’re talking about configuring settings and options in your web server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the traffic your website will attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for both good and unwelcome traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include looking at things like integrating spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, 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 a number of external sites and/or online services.
External Sites & Solutions – Configuration
The purpose of adding external sites is that all content should be published to a central location (your site) and from there, get distributed automatically to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After incorporating these external platforms into your traffic system, content pointing back to your website gets automatically added to search, social and aggregator sites. Your business will receive exposure online, helping you tap into a whole new audience and traffic source.
Some of the external sites will need to have accounts set up before configuring your settings to 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:
Google Search Console
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Webmasters lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of important information, SEO tools, and reports about their website.
Once your account has been with Google are set up, this information can be used to automate traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account has been set up, you can add traffic monitoring code to all of your web pages in WordPress via a Google Analytics plugin and send data automatically to other online applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your account with Bing Webmaster Tools, this information can be used with traffic-related settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress provides users with the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to build a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, 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 these features into your web traffic system in Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media pages and get new visitors to your site)
You will need to have already set up your social accounts in order to integrate these with 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.
Set up accounts with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select those that will work well with your system and/or content syndication tools (we will look at some of these tools in greater detail during the Automation phase).
(There are lots of social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free levels, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your RebelMouse page.
There are many different sites and platforms you can incorporate into your web traffic system. Please contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up third-party service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Web Site For Traffic
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
Configuring Global WordPress Settings
By default, WordPress includes a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains an important and often overlooked traffic notification system …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings Screen)
As stated in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have specifically chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the list of services entered into the Update Services field
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, this section includes only one entry …
(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 …
(You can 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 your content gets seen by visitors 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 a summary of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could affect someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website to read the rest of the content from summaries, 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 check box is ticked or not.
Generally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to automatically notify your update services list whenever a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion Settings
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 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)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the ways your site’s permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring post permalinks)
We have written a detailed tutorial on using permalinks in WordPress here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that help to add almost every kind of functionality to your site, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Let’s 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 WordPress site for dealing with the effects of 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, securing your website is something you cannot ignore.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to hackers and bots.
For more details, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving your website’s SEO …
(SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive more traffic by making your site more search engine friendly)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your site’s search engine optimization. When properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google to index, it also gives you control over how your content is presented in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content with others can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you post content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their website with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Most social sharing plugins allow you to specify which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some social share plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your pages which users can unlock by sharing your page.
WP Theme Settings
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help grow your traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your site, some themes also provide options for improving search optimization and site linking structure for faster indexing, easily add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes allow you to configure options and settings for better traffic results)
With many themes, adding social sharing buttons to your content is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features)
Other Areas To Configure
Last but not least in the traffic configuration process, are the things that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle bad and good traffic but also for all the situations that can seriously affect your business when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you do any kind of business online (or plan to), you need to make sure that your website remains compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
We have written a detailed article about how to quickly add legal pages to your WordPress website or blog here:
Categories And Post Tags
Post tags and categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your website.
(WordPress categories help to improve your site’s SEO, which helps you get more traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your website’s post 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 post categories and tags that have been set up.
Add A Site Map To Your WordPress Site
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 tools discover your site’s content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. HTML site maps are web pages that link to all other content on your site and provide readers with a logical map of how your content is structured, while XML sitemaps are mostly code that only search bots can read. Although Google can index your site 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 can result in increased traffic.
Don’t Forget Your 404 Page
When visitors searching for your website enter the wrong web address into their web browser or click on links pointing to pages on your site that no longer exist, they will normally be greeted with an error page …
(A 404 Error Page)
A 404 Error Page can be configured to funnel visitors to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your server, there are several WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your website or blog fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do to start generating more traffic is post web content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of different elements and external web properties …
(WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The expertise required to perform this phase of the traffic automation process can take many website developers months to acquire.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as can be automated. This step is explained in the next section of the series.
This is the end of Part 3
To read more, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of an tutorial series designed to help you learn how to grow your business with a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven marketing strategies that are easy to implement.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
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