Welcome to Part Three of our WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a website into an automated traffic machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part 1 of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do to automatically start generating more traffic is add web content regularly!)
In Part 2, we focused on the setup phase of this process. We helped you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your website was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we look at the configuration phase of the traffic system. The focus of this section is to help you understand what makes an expertly configured site different, and what kind of work needs to be done to make sure that when all is set up and fully configured, you can automatically start attracting new visitors as you begin to add web content consistently on your WordPress site.
WordPress Web Traffic System – Configuration
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by business owners as their greatest challenge online. With business becoming so much more competitive, it’s worth looking into every advantage available to increase your own competitiveness online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous advantage. For business owners, an expertly configured website gives WordPress users a flying start as soon as their website is launched.
The Difference Is In The Way Your Site Is Configured
There is a 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 one way to explain the main difference:
With a WordPress site 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 web presence with an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only is more work required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special type of expert knowledge.
To illustrate this here is a joke.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
All was going fine in the widget factory when everything came to a sudden stop.
No one could figure out what has gone wrong and so the manager decided to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Promptly after arriving, the expert headed immediately towards the main control box. After staring at the box for 5 minutes or less, the expert then took out a teensy-weensy hammer and made a gentle tap about 3 cm from the top-left side of the control unit.
Immediately, the machinery came back to life.
The floor manager was greatly overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the factory manager received a bill for $5,000.
The manager dialled the expert, demanding to know why they were being charged such a ludicrous fee for less than five minutes work and promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrived in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive web traffic to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one in the factory floor had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert not have the right to be compensated fairly for having invested years building up the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to immediately assess and avert a crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a WP site configured so all you had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social networking sites and dozens of other traffic-generating web properties would be automatically 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 site?)
Although experts often make difficult things look easy, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to figure things out.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site requires more than installing a website and configuring a few basic settings. It involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which plugins you need to install to add desired functionalities to your site.
- Which 3rd-party services you need to set up and activate to achieve specific outcomes
- Which options need to be configured to make sure everything will function as planned, etc.
(Generating traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this stage of the traffic automation system may not seem technically challenging, it can be quite involved. This is because it’s not as simple as installing and configuring one or two plugins, clicking a button, or configuring some options and settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of many parts including your web server, your web site, and various third-party sites and/or online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we try to flowchart all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified diagram showing the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these steps.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your hosting account for website installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about fine-tuning settings and options in your web server that affect how your website will handle web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your web hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the traffic your business will attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for good and unwelcome traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include looking at things like configuring server-level spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After checking your server settings and configuring these, the next step is to set up and configure various third-party sites.
Integration With External Solutions
The purpose of adding external sites is that all content gets posted to one central location (your site) and from there, it radiates outwards automatically to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external platforms have been added to your configuration, content with links pointing back to your site is automatically posted to these platforms. Your content and website will benefit from exposure online, helping you tap into a whole new audience and traffic source.
Some external sites and services will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress settings to save time 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 site’s settings:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly website or blog)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with essential data, SEO tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
After setting up your account and entering site details with Google Webmasters, your account details can be used with traffic settings and notifications 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 website’s performance, SEO, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrals, etc.
After setting up your up your account and site data has been entered, traffic monitoring information can be added to all pages in WordPress via plugins used with other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your account and site details with Bing Webmaster Tools are set up, the account details can be used to automate web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress provides users with a self-hosted (WordPress.org) and a hosted (WordPress.com) option. 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 features, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your traffic system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and get new visitors to your site)
You will need to set up your social media accounts in order to 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 and social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have set up accounts and profiles with all of the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can set up. You don’t need to go crazy, just pick those that will work well with your system and/or content sharing tools (we cover some of these tools in greater detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(You can syndicate your content to lots of social sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online web platforms and content aggregators that can act as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free plans, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add an RSS feed from your WordPress site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your 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 need assistance exploring this area further, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up accounts with external sites, it’s time to configure WordPress.
Configuring Your WordPress Site
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Configuring Global WordPress Settings
Your WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most important and often overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to WordPress users …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
As described in this 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 notify the list of update services entered into the Update Services box
By default, this section contains only one entry …
(Update Services)
WordPress lets you 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
***
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
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 have an influence web traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog to get the rest of the content from summaries, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The main setting here as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is enabled or not.
Generally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables WordPress to instantly notify the list of update services whenever a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, leave this box unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – 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 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 …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings)
The examples below show some of the ways your SEO-friendly URLs can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
To learn more about setting up permalinks, see this tutorial: Setting Up Your WordPress Permalinks
Configuring Settings – WordPress Plugins
WordPress provides users with plugins that can add almost every type of functionality to your website, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help your site generate more traffic
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. Regardless of the type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, securing your sites is something you cannot ignore.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to botnet and hacker attacks.
For more details, go here:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website …
(SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive more traffic by making your website more search engine friendly)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) 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 lets you specify how to present your content in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content online can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you provide content that adds real 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 to choose from.
Many social share plugins let you choose which social sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your site which users can unlock by liking your page.
Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your website, many themes also include built-in features that let you improve SEO and site linking structure for faster indexing, easily add analytics code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) can be configured for improved traffic results)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing features to your content is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features)
Other Areas To Configure For Increased Traffic Flow
Last but not least in the traffic configuration process, are the things that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Website Compliance 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 when more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online (or plan to), you need to ensure that your site remains compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Site Compliant?)
If you need help understanding how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your site, refer to this article:
WordPress Post Categories & Tags
Tags & post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your pages.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your web pages.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your website’s post tags and post categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Phases.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and categories have been correctly set up to deliver optimal benefits.
A Site Map Of Your Pages and Posts
A visitor site map that displays all of your site’s pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external applications find more of your web content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. Although search engines like Google can index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which plugins 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 – A Source Of Lost Traffic Opportunities!
When visitors searching for your website type in the wrong URL or click on an invalid link, they will typically be greeted with a 404 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 redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found error page can be set up on your server, there are several plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your site has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you then need to do to automatically attract web traffic is post new content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of different elements and external web properties …
(WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise required to perform this process typically takes some website professionals months 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 addressed in the next section of our series.
This is the end of Part Three
To read more, click here:
This article is part of an tutorial series designed to help you learn how to grow your business online cost-effectively and drive traffic sustainably with a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven web marketing methods.
Subscribe To This Site And Get Notified Of New Tutorials!
***
"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
***