WordPress is extremely popular with bloggers for a reason. WordPress is unparalleled when it comes to versatility and ease of use. If you want to have a successful blog, then WordPress is a great step to take. Read on for some great tips and tricks on using the website.
Clean up long titles in the permalink. Avoid cumbersome URLs like “The Ten Ways Intelligent Parents Manage Their Children.” Alter the permalink to include only the keywords.
Spend some time getting to know all of WordPress’s tools and options. For example, clicking the Kitchen Sink will give you choices such as importing and formatting posts. Use this to control a wide variety of formatting elements.
WordPress can help you include video blogging on your site. Spending a little extra time preparing your website will save you time in the long run. Video blogs are perfect for Internet users who are visual. A video is able to show people what words cannot, and that is why it’s so powerful.
It’s easy to incorporate videos on your blog with WordPress. This will take a while, but the benefits are great. Most Internet users are very visual. Videos offer perspectives that written content cannot, so they are quite helpful.
Take special characters out of your URLs for your blog posts. They make it difficult for search engine spiders to “crawl” around your pages. You should make your URLs shorter and only use keywords.
Delete comments or content that add no value to your site. You want to make your site as user-friendly as possible. Akismet is a great plugin that you can include that will help you to filter out the daily spam on your site.
Spend a little extra time on your pictures if you want to improve your rankings on search engines. Make sure that your title tags are clearly indicated. Your title will show up if someone “pins” that image to Pinterest.
Don’t include any special characters in your URLS. They make life hard for search engines when they spider the site, so get rid of them. Your URLs should also be shortened to just include keywords, so they do not overwhelm your visitors.
Allow users to email your articles if they want to. This is critical when it comes to sharing too, because those who do not have access to social media at work may still want to send your articles to their friends. Use a WP-Email plugin to make this happen.
Sometimes you spend hours changing your WordPress site, and then think that the changes have not been saved. This is most often not the case. Clear you cache to get rid of this problem. Press your shift key, hold it, and refresh the browser. Changes should then be visible.
Do not use something generic like “admin” when it comes to your username. This makes yourself more vulnerable to bots. This raises the risk in security. Look at each individual page on your site and change admin or administrator usernames. Choose a different username.
The posts that you make appear in the order you make them, unless you specify. Rearrange your list by changing the date. First, open a post and locate the date in the upper right hand corner. Click the date, choose a new one and save the post to alter its position.
Security is something a WordPress site needs, and that’s why you need to keep passwords secret. Also, be sure to only download plugins you have obtained from trustworthy sites. Always look at reviews prior to installation. If your site is hacked or gets malware, you will lose everything.
Do your posts get comments from lots of people? If that is the case, sorting through the many comments can get difficult both for you and your visitors. Use a plugin to insert page numbers in the comments area. It will be easier to navigate your site, and it will look more organized.
Keep your WordPress plugin installations to the minimum you need. Of course plugins are cool and fun, but each one that is added increases the time it takes your website to load. You may decrease your search engine rankings and popularity because your site takes too long to load. Websites that run slow aren’t ranked as highly.
Ensure that users have easy access to your articles, which should be in their email, at their leisure. This is crucial for sharing purposes. Visitors may not have access to sites like Twitter or Facebook at work and need a way of sharing your article with others. WordPress has a plugin for email sharing.
Back up your blog. This is an important step in ensuring that you don’t lose your entire blog. Use one of the plugins available such as Xcloner for your WordPress. The actual plugin doesn’t really matter, as long as it is something that you can use relatively easily. It would be disastrous to lose your whole blog.
Make sure targeted titles and descriptors are always used. People will first see these through the search engines. This gives them great significance. Use Scribe (a form of SEO software) to control these items even more. Carefully editing these items can lead to greater web traffic.
Connect your posts by utilizing internal linking plugins. This provides your readers with additional content to peruse while visiting your site. With these plugins, up to five links appear following each post. These links are related to the tag relevance of the posts that appear on your site.
Always update your plugins. The plugins are capable of adding great power to your site. However, as with any other software, there are updates. Make sure to install the updates so you can keep the plugin running smoothly.
Approving comments manually is a thing of the past. Instead, use a plugin entitled Akismet. You can moderate comments individually, but it’s advisable to switch off manual approval and let visitors comment freely. You won’t save yourself time.
Only install WordPress plugins you will actually use. When you add too many plugins, it can slow your website down. If your website is slow, it can affect your rankings with different search engines. A slower site generally ranks more poorly than optimized sites.
Read reviews of a plugin you want to use. Keep in kind that these plugins may be created by any person that can program. You want to avoid downloading a plugin full of flaws and bugs. Plugins with several downloads and high ratings are usually safer.
Make sure your site has the most recent version of WordPress. Many updates have security updates to fix vulnerabilities. You are more likely to be attacked by malware if you have an old version of WordPress. Install all updates WordPress offers in order to ensure the best security.
Do you want to get rid of the WordPress clutter? Turn off some boxes on your pages. Look for “Screen Options” in the WordPress window to find them. In there, you’ll see a full menu of boxes that you can turn on and off.
Think about scheduling post publishing in advance by using WordPress. Have the articles posted at times when you are unable to post them. Find the Publish option from your Edit screen. Underneath, there should be something that says Publish Immediately. Change that so that it will change it to the time and date you want to publish it. Approve the selection. When a screen appears for the “schedule for”, check it on and press “Schedule” if the info is correct.
If you need a host to keep your WordPress blog on, pick one that comes with installation tools that are compatible with WordPress. You can spare yourself a database creation in doing so. With one click, the host can create the blog domain for you as well as the associated database.
Do you have too much going on with the functions in WordPress? Look at the page and turn off a few of the boxes. Look for your “Screen Options” at the very top of the page. Select it for a drop-down menu that lets you switch on or off boxes you want visible.
Try out different blog authoring tools. Do you dislike the WordPress’s dashboard? Try Windows Live Writer, a third-party program for authoring blogs. There are several tools that work with WordPress that make your workflow more efficient. Try some out, and choose the one making your work easier.
Be sure to let people comment about your blog posts. Allowing comments creates a relationship with your readers. Use this information to learn about your visitors. Plugins allow you to approve particular comments before they show up online, so spammers and advertisers are not a problem.
Consider highlighting the responses you give to the comments of others. You will find a number of questions and even insights from readers in the comment area. It is easy to lose track of important information. It would be wise to make the author’s comments appear in a different hue. This will make it easy to spot them.
Highlighting the author’s comments can draw attention to them. Many people note concerns or pose questions through the comment section. If there are lots of comments, it’s easy to miss quite a few. Make sure to highlight author commentary in a contrasting color. This will make it easy to spot them.
Your sites should contain images. The saying about a picture being worth a lot more than words is true even today. This adds much more interest to your site. Make sure you use title and alternate text tags to describe the picture so that it seems clear for readers and the search engines.
Come up with a plan before you make a WordPress site. Make sure that you know what you are doing before you put the plan into action. This allows you to shape your website around your plans.
Just because a plugin costs money does not mean you shouldn’t use it. Think about what the plugin does and how much time it would save to see if the cost is worth it. If there are many great features and a low price, it may be worth it.
Plugins are very valuable when using WordPress. Compare the time saving capabilities of the plugin versus the price. It may be worth the price if it is going to free up a lot of time for you.
You can test changes to your site before you make them live by duplicating it in an additional folder and database. Doing this helps you avoid making harmful changes that could ruin your site.
You can test changes to your site before you make them live by duplicating it in an additional folder and database. Once you know how a plugin will affect your website, you can decide whether or not to make it permanent.
You don’t need to make the entire site by yourself. If you have anyone available to you, either as a volunteer or as a hire, who can help and save valuable time, they are worth asking to join you.
Let someone else help you do the work on your site. You can hire someone or get a volunteer to take care of some of the tech work so that you don’t go through a lot of trial and error.
Include tags on all of your images and links to take good advantage of SEO potential. Clear, succinct category names can help you gain more readers by improving your ranking on the major search engines. For instance, you may have found this article by searching for “beginner tips for WordPress” or “plugins for WordPress.”
Use the platform for a while, and you will be hooked for life. Use the information from the article to help you learn how to develop a blog. Your blog looks like a pro built it in no time, giving you free time to focus on writing.
Make sure you existing plugins are compatible prior to upgrading. If your site has plugins that it relies on, you might consider waiting before you install a WordPress update. By not waiting your plugins and widgets could cease to function.