Welcome to Part Three of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part 1 of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do to begin bringing new traffic is add fresh content consistently!)
In Part Two, we looked at critical setup decisions. We explained the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your website has been built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress web site on your domain)
In this article, we discuss the configuration stage of this process. We will show you how to configure a WordPress site to automatically bring visitors when you begin publishing fresh content consistently on your site.
WordPress Traffic System – Configuration
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Businesses are becoming increasingly more competitive worldwide and are researching any advantage they can to increase their competitiveness online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a tremendous competitive advantage. Having an expertly configured WordPress site gives you a significant advantage from the very start.
The Configuration Process Is What Makes The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer you.
Here’s a simple way to understand the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing process!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only are more steps needed to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special type of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with a little story.
A Semi-True Story …
Things are moving along in the widget assembly plant when everything comes to a sudden stop.
As no one can figure out what went wrong, the manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Soon afterwards, the expert arrives and, without saying a word, immediately walks towards the control box. After staring silently at the box for no more than 3 minutes or so, the expert then takes out a tiny little hammer from his shirt pocket and makes a single tap near the right edge of the unit.
Immediately, everything comes back to life.
The floor manager is filled with joy as he thanks the expert, who leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the manager receives an invoice for $5,000.
With great anger, the factory manager picks up the phone and dials the expert. Demanding to know why they have been charged such a ludicrous fee for so little time spent delivering a minimal amount of work, he promptly requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrives on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive traffic consistently to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one on the business had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have every right to ask to be compensated fairly for having invested years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your site set up so all you have to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other online 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 site?)
While the solution to many challenges may seem ridiculously simple in hindsight, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring settings for clients. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which programs need to be installed to get specific functionalities on your site.
- Which 3rd-party accounts you need to set up and activate to get certain outcomes
- Which settings you need to configure to ensure that things will work as you have imagined, etc.
(Driving new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this part of the traffic automation system may not seem technically challenging, it can be quite involved and time-consuming. The reason why is because it’s not as simple as installing and configuring a piece of software, configuring some options and settings in your admin area … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration phase is a process that involves your server, your web site, and various external sites and/or online services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing the activities involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine what’s involved.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for site installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is tweaking settings and options in your server that affect how you will handle web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your web hosting account settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the traffic your site can attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include looking at things like spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page error redirections, etc?)
Once your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured, the next step is to set up and configure a number of external sites.
Integration With External Solutions
The purpose of setting up external sites is that all content should be published from one central location (your site) and from there, radiate outwards to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you add these external platforms to your traffic network, content pointing back to your website will be automatically posted to search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and website benefits from exposure online, helping your business tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some external sites and online services will need to have accounts 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, you will want to set up the following accounts before configuring your settings:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Search Console)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of useful information, SEO tools and reports about your website.
After setting up your account, the account details can be used to integrate and automate traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s traffic performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and organic referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, you can add your account information to WordPress using a simple plugin and send data instantly to many other applications and web properties.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your account has been with Bing are set up, your information can be used with traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers users the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you are planning to build a professional online presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your web traffic system in Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and attract new visitors to your site)
You will need your various social media and social bookmarking accounts set up before you can 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 sites and social bookmarking accounts and attract new traffic to your site.
You should have pages set up with all of the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can set up. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose the ones that will work well with your system and/or content syndication tools (we will review some of these tools in greater detail in the Automation phase).
(You can syndicate your content to many social bookmarking sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as secondary sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add a feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your social feed.
There are various sites and platforms that can be incorporated into your traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you would like to explore some of these and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with external services, it’s time to configure your WordPress settings.
WordPress Traffic Configuration
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 areas.
Global WordPress Settings
Your WordPress admin area contains a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Sections 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 area contains an important and often overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(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 specifically configured your settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the list of services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section displays only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list containing all of the update services you want notified to this section and WordPress will do the rest …
(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
This section affects how visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can have an influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could play a part in someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website or 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.
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.
Generally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows your site to automatically ping the list of update services when a new post gets 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 …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings)
Discussion Settings
Although discussion settings 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the options for configuring your post permalinks …
(Configuring post permalinks)
If you need help setting up permalinks in WordPress, see this step-by-step tutorial: Changing Your WordPress Permalinks
Configuring Settings – Plugins
WordPress provides users with plugins that can add just about every kind of functionality imaginable to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more visitors 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 website or blog is immune from cyberattacks.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to botnet and hacker attacks.
More info:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
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)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) can improve your SEO. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google to find, crawl and index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed to Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content with their social networks can help boost 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 website using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
You can easily add social features to your website with WordPress plugins.
Many social sharing plugins let you specify which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your pages which visitors can unlock by liking your page.
WordPress Traffic Theme Features – Configuration
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your website, many themes also provide options for improving SEO and site linking structure for better indexing, easily add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes include built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your content is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic System Configuration – Other Don’t Forget These
Last but not least in the configuration process, are the components that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with bad and good traffic but also for all the situations that can seriously affect your business when more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website stays compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?)
We have created a detailed article about adding compliance pages to WordPress here:
WordPress Tags & Post Categories
Post categories & post tags help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your website.
(Categories help search engines classify and index your pages, which improves traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your site’s post categories and tags should be set up during the Website Planning Stages.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the post categories and tags you have set up.
Add A Site Map
A site map that lists all of your pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external tools find more of your site’s content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. Although Google will index your pages just using an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
404 Page – Don’t Lose Traffic!
When online users enter the wrong URL or click on a link pointing to a destination on your site that no longer exists, they are presented with an error – page not found message …
(A 404 Error Page)
A 404 Not Found page can be configured to redirect confused visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found page can be set up on your web server, there are several WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your website has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do then is post new content on a consistent basis to automatically start driving web traffic.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of different components and external web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of skills and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes many website developers months to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is addressed in the next article in our series.
This is the end of Section Three
To read more, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials designed to help you learn how to grow your business online and drive traffic sustainably with a WordPress website or blog and proven marketing methods that are easy to implement.
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