Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a site into an automated traffic machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part 1 of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do to automatically begin bringing traffic is post great content consistently!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase of the traffic automation process. We explained the best way to start 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 existing website has been built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we will look at the configuration stage of this process. You will learn what makes an expertly configured site different. You will also understand what kind of work needs to be done to ensure that when everything is set up and configured, visitors will automatically start flowing simply by adding content on your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by business owners as their greatest challenge online. With business getting ever more competitive on a global scale, it’s worth looking into any and every advantage available to improve your own performance and results online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand can provide you with a tremendous advantage over the competition. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website allows their business to get off with a flying start from the moment their website is launched.
The Configuration Stage Is What Makes All The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here is a simple way to describe the key difference:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence and an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only is more work required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special kind of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with an amusing little story.
A Semi-True Story …
Things are going well in the gizmo factory when all of a sudden, everything just stops.
As no one can figure out what’s happened, the plant manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Promptly after arriving, the expert immediately goes towards the main control box. After staring silently at the wiring board for about 2 minutes or less, the expert then produces a tiny little hammer from his pocket and makes a very gentle tap near the bottom-left side of the control unit.
Immediately, every machine springs back to life.
The plant manager is delighted as he thanks the expert, who then leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the factory manager receives an invoice for the amount of $5,000.
Furious, the factory manager calls the expert. Why had he charged them such an exorbitant fee for so little time delivering such minimal amount of work? He promptly requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrives in the manager’s intray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive web traffic to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one on the business had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have every right to demand fair compensation for having spent years developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to fix a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your website set up so all you ever had to do is publish new content and search engines, social media and dozens of other web properties would be immediately notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your site?)
While experts often make complicated situations and problems look easy, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires more than simply installing a website and configuring a few settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which plugins need to be installed to get various functionalities on your site.
- Which services need to be set up to achieve specific results
- Which options you need to configure in order to make sure everything will function as expected, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite involved and time-consuming. The reason why is because it’s not as easy as installing and configuring a solution, tweaking some settings in your admin area or clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all of this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a process that involves your server, your WP site, and a number of third-party sites …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If we try to flowchart the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified diagram showing the configuration phase)
Let’s take a better look at these areas.
Web Server Configuration
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). What we are talking about, is tweaking settings in your web hosting account that affect how your site will handle all 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 positive traffic. Some of the web traffic your website will attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include things like integrating server-level spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After your web server settings have been checked and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of external sites and services.
External Services
The idea behind setting up external sites is that all of your content gets published to one central location (your site) and from there, it then gets distributed automatically to other parts of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external services have been added to your system, content with links pointing back to your website will get automatically syndicated to these platforms, indexed by search engines and shared to other social sites, even to users of the platform itself. Your content and website will be given exposure to a new audience and source of traffic.
Some of these external web properties and online solutions will need to be set up before configuring your settings to speed up the configuration process and some will need to be done later, during the automation phase.
For example, you will want to set up the following accounts:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of important data, SEO tools, and reports about their website.
After setting up your account and entering site data, use the information with traffic settings and notifications 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, user engagement, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and social media referrals, etc.
After setting up your account, traffic tracking information can be added to WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins used with other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your Bing Webmaster Tools account and entering site details, use this information with web traffic 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 2, WordPress offers users a hosted (WordPress.com) and a self-hosted (WordPress.org) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to grow a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your traffic generation system in Part Four of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and attract new traffic to your site)
You will need your social accounts set up before you can 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 attract new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have accounts and profiles set up with all of the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can set up. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select the ones that will work with your setup and/or content sharing tools.
(There are many social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging web platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free plans, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different user types.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add a feed from your site …
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 website.
There are many different platforms you can incorporate into your own traffic system. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring this area further, or to discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with external sites, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Configuring Global WordPress Settings
The WordPress administration area contains a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and often overlooked built-in traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings)
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 intentionally configured your settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the update services entered into the Update Services text area
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is listed …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of update services to this section and WordPress takes care of the rest …
(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 your content gets seen by visitors when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can have an influence traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content appears 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 site 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 most important setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Typically, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows your site to ping your update services list when new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, make sure this box is left unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion
Although this section is 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings Section)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to publish posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings Screen)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your post permalinks …
(Configuring permalinks)
To learn more about setting up permalinks in WordPress, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: Setting Up Your WordPress Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings
WordPress provides users with plugins that help to add just about every type of functionality to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that improve traffic generation
Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No web site is completely immune from being attacked.
(WordPress 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 botnets.
For more details, go here:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web content more indexable …
(WordPress Plugins For SEO – Yoast SEO)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your website’s search engine optimization. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google to index, it also lets you specify how to display your content in Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you post content that adds value to readers.
(You can add social sharing to your website easily with free or inexpensive plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their site using WordPress plugins.
Most social plugins let you select which sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your pages which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
WP Theme Settings
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 the design and layout of your site, some themes also provide built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for faster indexing, easily add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WP themes like Graphene (a free theme) allow you to configure options and settings for better traffic results)
With many themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features)
Other Areas To Configure For Increased Traffic
Last (but by no means least) in the traffic configuration process, are the elements that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Legal Web 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 are making money online (or are planning to), you need to make sure that your website is found to comply with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Or Blog Compliant?)
To learn more about how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your WordPress website, see this article:
Categories & Tags
Post tags & post categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search optimization.
(Post categories help search engines classify and index your pages, which helps to increase traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your site’s post tags and categories should be set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Phase.
When configuring your web site to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the tags and categories you have set up.
Site Map
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 sites find more of your web content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Although search engines like Google will index your site 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 Page Not Found – Don’t Forget This!
When visitors searching for your site enter the wrong web address or click on a hyperlink pointing to a page on your website that no longer exists, they are greeted with an error – page not found message …
(A WordPress 404 Not Found page)
A 404 page can redirect confused visitors to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 Error 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 WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your WordPress site fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do is post new content on a consistent basis to automatically attract new web traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of different components and external web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise required to perform this stage of the traffic automation process typically takes some website developers a long time to acquire.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is covered in the next article in the series.
This is the end of Part Three
To read the rest of this article, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively and drive traffic organically using a WordPress-driven website and proven web marketing methods.
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