Welcome to Part 3 of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your site 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 site is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do to start generating web traffic is add fresh content on a consistent basis!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase of the blueprint. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your site was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this section of the series, we look at the configuration stage of the traffic blueprint. We explain why an expertly configured WordPress site is different. You will also learn how much work is required to ensure that when all is fully configured, you can automatically drive traffic just by publishing web content to your WordPress site.
WordPress Traffic Automation System – Configuration
The ability to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. With business becoming ever more competitive worldwide, it’s worth exploring any opportunity you can to increase your own competitiveness online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand is a tremendous competitive advantage. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website allows their business to get off with a flying start from the moment their site is launched.
The Configuration Phase Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here is a simple way to understand the difference:
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 required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special type of expert knowledge.
Let me illustrate this with a story.
A Semi-True Story …
All is running smoothly in the gizmo-making plant when everything comes to a sudden stop.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the manager decides to call in an expert.
Promptly after arriving, the expert walks immediately to the main control box. After staring silently at the control unit for 2 minutes or less, the expert then produces a teensy-weensy little hammer and makes a single tap about one inch from the left-hand corner of the control unit.
Immediately, everything comes back to life.
The manager is greatly overjoyed as he thanks the expert, who then leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the factory manager receives a bill for $5,000.
Angrily, the factory manager picks up the phone and calls the expert. Why were they charged so much for less than 5 minutes work? He promptly requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice arrives on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive traffic consistently to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when the machines stopped working and no one in the factory floor had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to demand fair compensation for investing years developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to quickly avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a website or blog set up and configured so all you had to do is publish new content and search engines, social networks and dozens of other 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 attracting new visitors to your site?)
While experts often make complex situations and problems look easy, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than just installing a website and configuring some basic settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install to add specific functionalities to your site.
- Which services need to be set up to get desired outcomes
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured in order to ensure that processes will run to plan, etc.
(Driving new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This stage of the traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite involved and time-consuming. It’s not as simple as installing and configuring a piece of software, clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all this and so much more.
The configuration phase involves the integration of many parts including your web hosting server, your WP site, and various third-party sites or online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we were to create a simple diagram of all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic flowchart showing the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these areas in more detail.
Web Server Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about tweaking settings and options in your web server that affect how your site will handle web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your web server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic your website can attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is all about evaluating your needs, planning for good and bad traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like implementing server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring domain and email forwarding, setting up 404 redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
Once your web server settings have been checked and configured, the next step is to set up and configure a number of external sites or online solutions.
External Sites And Accounts – Configuration
The idea behind setting up external sites is that all content is published to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it gets distributed automatically to other components of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
After adding these external sites to your setup, content linking back to your site will be automatically fed to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your website receives exposure online, helping your business tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some web properties and online services will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress site’s 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:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmasters – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Search Console lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of essential information, SEO tools, and reports about their website.
Once your account and site data with Google Webmaster Tools have been set up, use your account information to integrate and automate web traffic-related 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 performance, SEO, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, visitor tracking code can be added to WordPress via plugins and and 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 Bing Webmaster Tools account and entering site details, you can use this information with web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to grow a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your traffic generation system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and get new visitors to your site)
You will need to have already set up your social media accounts before you can configure these as part of your traffic generation system.
After setting up and configuring everything, you will be able to syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and get new visitors to your site.
You should set up accounts with all the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can You can post your content to many social bookmarking sites. You don’t need to go crazy, just select those that will work well with your setup and/or content syndication tools.
(There are many social sites you can post your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging web platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute your content to social networks)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your RebelMouse social feed.
There are many different sites and platforms 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 configuration plan to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with third-party services, it’s time to configure your WordPress settings.
WordPress Site Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to ensure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
WordPress Settings
By default, your WordPress administration area includes a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains an important and frequently overlooked traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
As stated in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have specifically chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the list of services entered into the Update Services text area
By default, only one service is listed …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
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 takes care of the rest …
(You can 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 readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can influence web 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 RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your 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.
As far as your traffic system is concerned, however, the most important setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is enabled or not.
Generally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to automatically notify the update services list whenever a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings)
Discussion
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 articles, 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 Screen)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the ways your permalink URLs can be configured …
(Configuring post permalinks)
If you need help setting up WP permalinks, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO With Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add almost every type of functionality to your website, including traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No web site is completely safe from a cyber attack.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
More information:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving your site’s SEO …
(Yoast SEO – WordPress Plugin)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) can improve your site’s SEO. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google to find and index, it also gives you control over how your content is presented to Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content online can help drive more 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)
You can add social sharing to your website easily using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Many social share plugins allow you to select 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 shares), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content or downloads which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
Configuring WordPress Theme Settings For Traffic Generation
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring design and layout elements of your website, many themes also include built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, easily add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in traffic optimization features)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons to your site is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features)
Configuring Other WordPress Features
Last but not least in the web traffic system configuration process, are the components that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for how to handle good and unwelcome traffic but also for all the situations that can damage your business when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you make money online (or plan to), you need to make sure that your website remains compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
For a detailed article on how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your WordPress website or blog, go here:
WordPress Post Tags & Categories
WordPress categories & tags help search engines index your website, which helps to increase traffic.
(WordPress categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to classify and index your pages.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your website’s post categories and tags earlier on, during the Website Planning Stages.
When looking at ways to automate and improve 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 results.
A Site Map Of Your Posts And Pages
A 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 discover your web content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. Only search engines can interpret XML sitemaps. Although search engines like 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 results in increased traffic.
Your WordPress 404 Page
When online users type in the wrong web address or click on a hyperlink pointing to a destination on your website that no longer exists, they are greeted with a 404 error page …
(A 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found error page can be set up in your web server, there are plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your website fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do is post great content consistently to automatically begin attracting new web traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of various elements and external web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take many web developers months to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is covered in the next article in our series.
This is the end of Part 3
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of articles designed to help you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively and drive traffic automatically with a WordPress-driven website and proven web marketing strategies.
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"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com
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