Welcome to Part Three of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated web traffic generating machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do is add great content on a consistent basis to automatically begin attracting more web traffic!)
In Part 2, we looked at critical setup decisions. We helped you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your existing website was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In this section, we will discuss the configuration phase of the WordPress traffic automation system. You will learn how a WordPress site should be configured in order to ensure that web traffic will automatically start flowing when you post web content to your website.
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Configuration
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. Also, the business landscape is becoming ever more competitive worldwide and businesses are exploring every advantage they believe will help them increase their competitiveness online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand can provide you with a tremendous advantage over the competition. With an expertly configured website, your business has a flying start as soon as your site is launched.
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 one way to describe the difference:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence and an automated online business marketing tool!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only are more steps required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special type of expertise.
Allow me to illustrate this with a story.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
Things were going well in the widget workshop when production suddenly stopped.
As no one could figure out what happened, the floor manager decided to call in an expert.
The expert arrived shortly after being summoned and, without uttering a word, immediately walked to the main control box. After staring silently at the wiring diagrams for 2 minutes, the expert then produced a tiny hammer from his utility belt and made a very gentle tap about 1 inch from the left edge of the control unit.
Immediately, everything came back to life.
The floor manager was greatly overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the manager received a request of payment for services totalling $5,000.
The factory manager called the expert, demanding to know why he had charged them so much for so little time spent delivering a minimal amount of work and then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice arrived and was placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The main challenge most businesses face online is driving new traffic to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one on the factory floor was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have the right to demand fair compensation for having spent years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to avert a very serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your WP website fully set up so all you ever had to do is publish new content and search engines, social sites 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?)
Although the solution to many challenges can seem quite easy in hindsight, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to figure things out.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring some basic settings. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs need to be installed to get various functionalities on your site.
- Which 3rd-party services you need to set up to get desired results
- Which options you need to configure to make sure things function the way you would like, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not so technically difficult, but it’s quite involved. The reason why is because it’s not as easy as installing a solution, clicking a button … it’s all this and so much more.
The configuration phase involves the integration of different parts such as your web hosting server, your web site, and a number of external sites or online services …
(The configuration stage 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 flowchart showing the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these steps in more detail.
Configuring Your Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your webhosting account for site installation purposes. What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings and options in your web hosting account that affect how your website will handle all web traffic …
(During 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 web traffic your website can attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for both good and unwanted traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like configuring spam protection and securing server files, to configuring your domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page error redirects, etc?)
After fine-tuning your web server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites and online services.
3rd-Party Web Properties
The basic idea of setting up external sites is that all of your content should be published from a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, get automatically distributed to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you incorporate these external services into your traffic network, content linked back to your website will be automatically posted to these platforms. Your content and website will then receive increased exposure online, helping you tap into a new audience and traffic source.
Some of these third-party sites will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress site to help speed up the configuration 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 Search Console
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Webmasters 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 information, SEO tools, and reports about their website.
Once your account and site data with Google have been set up, use your information to automate traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s results, SEO, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account has been set up, tracking code can be added to WordPress using a plugin and instantly fed to other useful applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account is set up, use this information to automate traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress offers website owners the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you plan to build 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 these features into your web traffic generation 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 bring new traffic to your site)
You will need your various 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 sites and social bookmarking accounts and drive new traffic to your site.
Set up accounts and profile pages with all of the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
There are many social sites you can post your content to. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose those that will work with your system and/or content sharing tools (we will review some of these tools in greater detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(You can post your content to lots of social bookmarking sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging web platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add a feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your page.
There are many different solutions you can add to your own web traffic system. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these further, or to discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up external site accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
WordPress – Configuring Your Web Site For Traffic
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Configuring WordPress Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most powerful and often overlooked built-in traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings Screen)
As stated in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have intentionally configured your site settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the services entered into the Update Services field
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is available …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(You can 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 visitors when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can influence traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could play a part in someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your blog to read 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 checkbox is ticked or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables WordPress to automatically ping various update services when a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting 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 sites linked to from your content, 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 your site to publish posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the options for configuring your search-friendly URLS …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
If you need help setting up permalinks, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: Configuring Your WordPress Permalinks
Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of 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 examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to attract more visitors to your site
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. Regardless of the kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot ignore the importance of web security.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to malicious attacks from hackers and botnets.
Go here for more information:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your web pages …
(Yoast SEO – WordPress Plugins For SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (formerly known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) can improve your SEO. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find and index, it also lets you specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if your site provides great content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their site using free or inexpensive plugins)
There are loads of social sharing plugins available for WordPress users.
Many social plugins let you choose which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content which visitors can unlock by liking your page.
Configuring WordPress Traffic Features In Themes
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 layout and design of your website, some themes also give you built-in features that let you improve SEO and site navigation structure for faster indexing, easily add analytics code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes can be configured for better traffic results)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your content is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features)
Other Configuration Steps For WordPress Traffic
Last (but by no means least) in the traffic configuration process, are the elements that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with good and bad traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you make money online (or plan to), you need to make sure that your site remains compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Comply With The Law?)
To learn more about the importance of having a compliant website, go here:
WordPress Tags & Post Categories
Post categories & tags help to improve your site’s search optimization, which helps you get more traffic.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to classify and index your pages.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your website’s tags and categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Stages.
When looking at ways to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post categories and tags have been set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits.
Add A Site Map
A site map that displays all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external applications discover your web 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. Although Google can index your site 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.
Your WordPress 404 Page
When visitors searching for your website type in the wrong URL or click on hyperlinks pointing to destinations on your site that no longer exist, they are presented with an error page …
(A 404 Not Found page)
A 404 Not Found error page can be configured into a useful source of traffic to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your server, there are plugins for WordPress 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 expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do then is publish web content on a regular basis to automatically generate traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of a number of different elements and web properties …
(WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes some web professionals months to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as you can. This step is explained in the next article in our series.
This is the end of Part Three
To read more, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online cost-effectively and drive traffic automatically using a WordPress website or blog and proven online marketing methods.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now
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