Welcome to Part Three of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new traffic automatically to your website using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do is publish great content on a regular basis to start driving web traffic!)
In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase. 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 website, and what to do if your existing website was built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we will look at the configuration stage of the traffic system. We will help you understand what makes an expertly configured WordPress site different, and how much work is required to ensure that when everything is fully set up and configured, you will bring new visitors automatically when you add content to your WordPress site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation 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 so much more competitive worldwide, it’s worth looking into every advantage that can help you improve your own results online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand is a huge advantage over other competitors. With an expertly configured WordPress site, your business has a flying start from the moment your website is launched.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer you.
Here’s a simple way to understand the differences:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence plus an automated online business marketing tool!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does it take more labor to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special kind of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with a story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
All was humming along in the widget workshop when everything came to a sudden stop.
No one could figure out what has happened and so the manager decided to call in an expert.
Promptly after arriving, the expert went immediately to the control box. After staring silently at the board for less than 2 minutes, the expert then took out a little hammer and made a single tap about two inches from the right side of the control unit.
Immediately, everything started working again.
The floor manager was filled with joy as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the manager received a service bill for $5,000.
The factory manager called the expert, demanding to know why they were expected to pay so much for so little time delivering a minimal amount of work. He promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrived and was placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The main challenge most businesses face online is driving visitors to their sites.
How much money did the widget plant stand to lose when production stopped working and no one on the factory floor had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have the right to demand fair compensation for years spent developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to avert a potentially costly crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your WordPress website or blog set up and configured so all you have to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other web properties would be instantly notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your site?)
While the solution to many challenges often seems ridiculously easy once implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy when you try to figure things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires more than installing a website and configuring a few settings. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs you need to install for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which third-party accounts need to be set up to get certain outcomes
- Which settings need to be configured in order to ensure that things function as planned, etc.
(Generating web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not so technically challenging, but it’s quite involved and complicated. It’s not just about installing and configuring one or two plugins, tweaking some options and settings in your dashboard area or clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration phase is a complex process that involves your web server, your website or blog, and a number of third-party sites and services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we create a simple flowchart showing the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic diagram showing the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s examine what’s involved in more detail.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for website installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings in your webhosting account that affect how your website will handle web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your web server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the web traffic your website can attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
After fine-tuning your server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various external sites and/or online services.
Integration With External Services
The basic concept of adding external sites is that all content should be posted to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, be distributed automatically to other parts of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After adding these external platforms to your network, content with links pointing back to your website will be automatically published on search, social and aggregator sites. Your content will then be exposed to a new audience and source of traffic.
Some of these sites and 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 before configuring your settings:
Google Search Console
(Google Webmasters – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Search Console lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with essential information, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
After setting up your account, you can use the account information to automate traffic-related settings in WordPress (e.g. 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, search engine and organic referrers, etc.
After setting up your account, you can add visitor tracking information to all of your web pages in WordPress via any of several Google Analytics plugins and send data instantly to many other online applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account with Bing Webmaster Tools are set up, this information can be used to automate traffic settings 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 provides users with the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you plan to build a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate these features into your automated web traffic generation system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and get new visitors to your site)
You will need your social media 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.
Make sure you have profiles set up with all the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select the ones that will work well with your system and/or content syndication tools.
(There are many social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online platforms and content aggregators that can act as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free plans, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your RebelMouse social feed.
There are many different solutions that can be incorporated into your web traffic system. Please contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
WordPress Site Configuration
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
Global Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains a powerful and often overlooked traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Section)
As stated in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have purposely configured your settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the services entered into the Update Services box
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section contains only one entry …
(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 …
(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 to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, 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.
The main setting in this section as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Generally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows your site to notify all the update services you have listed in the Update Services section when new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, make sure this box is left unticked …
(WordPress 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 sites 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 …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings Section)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings)
The examples below show some of the ways your search-friendly URLS can be configured …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
If you need help setting up permalinks, go here: Improve Your WordPress SEO With SEO-Friendly URLs
WordPress Plugin Settings – Configuration
WordPress provides users with plugins that can add just about every kind of functionality to your site, including traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can improve traffic generation
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. No site is safe from being targeted.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to bots and hackers.
Go here to learn more:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your site more search engine friendly …
(WordPress SEO Plugin – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) can significantly improve your SEO. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google to find and index, it also lets you specify how to display your content in Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content online can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds real value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing buttons to your website using WordPress plugins)
There are many social sharing plugins available for WordPress users.
Many social share plugins let you choose which sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom post messages, 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 pages which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Configuring Settings – 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 layout and design aspects of your website, some themes also provide built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for better indexing, easily add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes can be configured for better traffic results)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your content is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic – Other Features To Configure
Last (but by no means least) in the configuration process, are the things that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Legal Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for both bad and good traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you do any type of business online, you need to make sure that your site stays compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, go here:
Post Tags & Categories
Post tags & categories help search engines index your website, which helps you get more traffic.
(Post categories help search engines classify and index your website, which helps to increase traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, your site’s categories and tags should be set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Stage.
When considering ways to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the post categories and tags that have been set up.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A visitor site map that displays all of your site’s pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external sites discover more of your website content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Only search engine bots can understand an XML sitemap. Although search engines like Google can index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin 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.
Don’t Forget Your WordPress 404 Error Page
When visitors type in the wrong URL into their browser or click on hyperlinks pointing to destinations on your website that no longer exist, they will normally be presented with a 404 Not Found page …
(A WordPress 404 Page)
A 404 Not Found error page can be configured to funnel traffic to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover web 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 inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your site has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do to begin attracting new web traffic is add great content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of different components and external web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise required to perform this process can take many website professionals months to acquire.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the aspects of the process that can be automated. This step is explained in the next section of the series.
This is the end of Part Three
To keep reading, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials designed to help website owners learn how to grow their business using a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven web marketing strategies.
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