Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new visitors automatically to your site using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part One of this series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to automatically start generating web traffic is add new content on a consistent basis!)
In Part Two, we discussed critical setup decisions. We helped you understand 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 site was built with WordPress.
(In Part two 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 how to configure a WordPress site so you can ensure that web traffic will automatically start flowing just by consistently publishing fresh content on your web site.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by business owners as their greatest challenge online. With business becoming ever more competitive on a global scale, it’s worth exploring any and every advantage that can help you improve your own results and performance online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand is a tremendous advantage over other competitors. For businesses, an expertly configured website gives WordPress users a flying start from the moment their website is launched.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally installed and set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s one 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 an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does it take extra work to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special type of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with a story.
Knowing Where To Tap
Things are going well in the widget assembly workshop when everything comes to a sudden stop.
As no one can figure out what’s happened, the manager decides to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert immediately heads towards the control box. After staring silently at the control unit for 2 minutes, the expert then takes out a teeny-weeny hammer and makes a single tap near the top-left side of the unit.
Immediately, everything comes back to life.
The floor manager is greatly relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the manager receives an invoice for $5,000.
With great anger, the factory manager rings the expert. Why had they had been charged so much 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, a bill of payment arrives and is placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is driving new visitors to their sites.
How much money did the widget plant stand to lose when the equipment stopped working and no one on the factory floor had the expertise required to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have every right to demand fair compensation for having spent years acquiring the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to quickly avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a site set up and configured so all you have to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other online 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 driving traffic to your site?)
While the solution to many challenges is often ridiculously easy in hindsight, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than just installing a website and configuring a few basic settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install for specific things to occur on your site.
- Which services need to be set up and activated to get desired outcomes
- Which settings you need to configure in order to make sure things function as expected, etc.
(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This stage of the WordPress traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite involved and complicated. It’s not as easy as installing one or two plugins, clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all this and so much more.
The configuration phase involves the integration of many different parts such as your web server, your web site, and a number of third-party sites …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart of all the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these areas.
Your Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your webhosting account for website installation purposes. We’re talking about configuring settings and options in your web server specifically for handling web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your server settings need to be fine-tuned 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 bot spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirects, etc?)
After checking your server settings and configuring these, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various external sites and/or online services.
External Sites
The basic idea of setting up external sites is that all content will be published to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will get automatically distributed to other parts of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you add these external sites to your configuration, content linked back to your site gets automatically posted to your search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and site will then receive added exposure online, helping your business tap into new sources of traffic.
Some sites and online services will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress site’s settings 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:
Google Search Console
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly website or blog)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with a range of essential information, SEO tools and reports about your website.
After setting up your account and entering site details, use this information to automate traffic settings 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 traffic results, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and organic referrers, etc.
After setting up your up your account and site data has been entered, account data can be easily integrated with WordPress using a plugin and instantly sent to other useful applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. After setting up your account with Bing Webmaster Tools, use the details to integrate and automate traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress offers users a self-hosted and a hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you are planning to grow a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which various 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 traffic generation system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and bring new traffic to your site)
You will need your 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 and social bookmarking accounts and drive new traffic to your site.
You should have profiles set up with all of the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can set up. You don’t need to go crazy, just select the ones that will work with your setup and/or content sharing tools (we will cover some of these tools in greater detail in the Automation phase).
(You can syndicate 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 act as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your website.
There are many different platforms you can incorporate into your traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore some of these further and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up external site accounts, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress – Configuring Your Web Site For Traffic
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to ensure that your global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global WordPress Settings
The WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and often overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings)
As described below 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 notify the list of services entered into the Update Services section
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is available …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
You can 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
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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 visitors will see your content 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 a summary of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS feeds 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 website or blog to get the rest of the content from a partial feed, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The main setting in this section as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is enabled or not.
Generally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows your site to automatically ping all the update services you have listed whenever new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, do not check this box …
(Global 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 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
Your Permalink settings allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks Section)
The examples below show some of the ways SEO-friendly URLs can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
To learn more about setting up permalinks in WordPress, see this step-by-step tutorial: Improve Your WordPress SEO Using Permalinks
WordPress – Traffic Plugins
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that help to add just about every kind of functionality imaginable to your site, including traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for dealing with the effects of 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 simply cannot afford to ignore the importance of website security.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to hackers and bots.
For more details, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving improving the way search engines find and index your web pages …
(SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive 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. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google and Bing to index, it also lets you specify how to display your content to Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, 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 easily add social sharing to your website with free or inexpensive plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social features to their website with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Most social plugins let you choose which sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social share plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your site which users can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
WordPress Traffic Generation Theme Features
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your website, many themes also give you built-in options for improving search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WP themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) include built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons to your content is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
Configuring Other WordPress Features For More Traffic Results
Last (but by no means least) in the traffic configuration process, are the areas that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for both good and bad traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of business online (or are planning to), you need to ensure that your website complies with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Compliant?)
We have created a detailed article about how to quickly add legal pages to your site here:
Post Tags & Categories
Post categories and post tags help search engines better classify and index your web pages, which improves traffic.
(Categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your pages.)
As we recommend in this article, your website’s tags and categories should be reviewed and set up during the Website Planning Stage.
When considering ways to automate and improve traffic, 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.
HTML 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 discover more of your site’s 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 things. HTML site maps provide readers with a visual map of how your content is organized, while XML sitemaps are mostly just a bunch of code that only search bots can interpret. Although 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 results in increased traffic.
404 Page – Don’t Forget To Configure This Too!
When visitors enter the wrong web address or click on a hyperlink pointing to an incorrect destination on your site, they are greeted with a 404 page …
(A WordPress 404 Error Page)
A 404 page can redirect confused visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found page can be set up in your server, there are several plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your WordPress site has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do is post web content on a consistent basis to automatically attract web traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of various components and external web properties …
(WP Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of expertise required to perform this stage of the traffic automation process typically takes many website developers a long time to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is covered in the next section of the WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Section Three
To keep reading, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials aimed at helping small business owners learn how to grow their business online cost-effectively with a WordPress website and proven web marketing methods.
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group
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