WordPress is the most popular platform for blogging and it offers great benefits. Take your blog to all new heights with some WordPress tools. Continue reading to learn how WordPress can work for you.
Don’t use a common design for your WordPress site. This may be tempting since it’s a time saver, but users will not be too impressed with your effort. You want to show how your site is different from everyone else.
If you have a long title on a post, be sure to clean up your permalink. Something like, “The Top 5 Ways Parents Discipline their Children” is a little too lengthy. Instead, try making the permalink “tips-parents-uncontrollable-children” or something comparable based on the SEO keywords.
Take some time to familiarize yourself with all the tools and options available to you when blogging with WordPress. For example, if you click on the KITCHEN SINK button, you will get lots of extra choices in importing and formatting that can really make your posts unique.Additionally, you will probably notice the SCREEN OPTIONS tab on your admin pages. Using this will help you better manage any formatting issues.
Familiarize yourself with the options and tools available on WordPress. One great tool is: Kitchen Sink. It gives you may importing and formatting choices. Screen Options is another useful tool. Control a variety of choices with this.
Be sure to learn all you can before you even install WordPress. It’s best to start WordPress when you have an understanding of how it works and a general idea of which plugins will work best for you. Learn about SEO, creating effective content, and using WordPress and its many features to help ease your workflow.
Be sure to make use of Title and Alt. when uploading an image to a post. This will let you add more SEO phrases and will let users that block images know what they are missing.
Have a plan before you begin publishing. With a schedule you’ll be motivated to keep posting. As a matter of fact, you can create your posts ahead of time and then use the WP scheduling feature to post them at specific times.
Unless you modify it, all posts will be in chronological order. Changing the date is the first step to rearranging your list. Upon opening one of the posts, you can view the date in the right-hand top corner. To change the posts position, click the date and change it.
Do your posts attract lots of comments? In these instances, it might be hard to navigate the comment section. Add a plugin that will add page numbers to this section. That will improve navigation and make your site look better organized.
Create a suitable greeting and heading at the very top of your home page on your site. Not only does this personalize your website, it welcomes guests based on how they found your blog. A possible plugin to use is WP Greet Box; using this will make the things feel less robotic.
Make it easy for your followers to email your articles as they wish. Additionally, make it easy for your users to share with their Facebook and Twitter friends. You can use a plugin called WP-Email to help you do this.
Keep your WordPress password secret. In addition, just use plugins from reputable sites and always read reviews. It just takes one instance of malware to mess up all your hard work.
Don’t use something boring, such as “admin”, as the name you use on your site. Bots will attack your blog if you make your username ADMINISTRATOR or ADMIN. Then, your entire site is at risk. Delete usernames that appear with “administrator” or “admin” on your user pages. Pick a different username.
Maintain organization with your media from the start. Direct uploading of images into your library seems easy and tempting, but it can get messy fast. Create several folders and place each image in the appropriate one. You’ll have a lot easier time finding images in the future that you hope to reuse.
Keep your plugins updated. These plugins are very important for your site. They will need to get updated though. Make sure to install the updates so you can keep the plugin running smoothly.
Don’t go overboard with installing too many WordPress plugins. While they can be very valuable, they also have a tendency to make your load time much longer. This means that the site will run slower for both you and your readers, and worse, it can make an negative impact on your search engine ranking. Optimized websites will almost always rank better than slow-running websites.
Try a linking plugin to help join your posts so that readers see a greater amount of content. This shows related posts on your website near the bottom of every post.
Only use the most recent updated WordPress version available. With each update, new security patches are rolled out. You can be at risk for malware if you use an old WordPress iteration that hasn’t been updated. Install every update possible that you can.
Pre-schedule your posts using WordPress. This way, your posts will be published while you are doing other things. Visit the “Edit” screen, and find the box for “Publish.” There, you will find “publish immediately.” Input the military time, day, month, and year that you want your post to be published. Choose the OK option. Check “Schedule For” and press “Schedule.”
Don’t forget to back up your blog. It’s important to back your blog up regularly. Consider a plugin such as Xcloner to assist you. Be sure to back your blog up in multiple spots. Losing your entire blog would be unfortunate.
Approving comments manually is very outdated. Install Akismet or something similar to do this for you. You can save time by getting e-mail alerts when comments are posted and unchecking manual approval. If you don’t do that, there really is no point in using Akismet.
Are you challenged to publish on schedule? You could write your content in advance and just specify the day and time of posting. You have the option to schedule a future posting when opening the new post page. This means you should get started on everything ahead of schedule.
When choosing a post header, forget about using the menu that drops down. Rather, use shortcuts on your keyboard. By depressing the CTRL key along with a numeric key between 1 and 6, you can get different options. That will save a great deal of time if you’re someone who often uses headers.
Get a webhost that is able to install WordPress by simply clicking a button. That will help you to avoid the problem of dealing with a separate database. One click will allow you to pick a domain name and secure the database as well.
Read user reviews of plugins. Keep in kind that these plugins may be created by any person that can program. You don’t want to install a problematic plugin. Go for popular plugins that have a four to five star rating to be on the safe side.
Make sure you let people comment on your site. This will help foster a community feeling and will allow you to get to know your readers better. There are plugins available so that you can approve comments before they appear on the site, so you don’t have to worry about advertisers and spammers.
Try to highlight comments made by blog posts authors. Sometimes, the comments section becomes a place to ask questions. Highlight author’s comments to avoid having the answers and responses get lost in the many comments. Be sure an author’s comments are highlighted in a contrasting color. It will be easy for visitors to recognize the responses.
Highlighting can come in handy, particularly when you are making note of an author’s comments. Comments are often filled with questions and concerns. Any responses made can be missed or overlooked because of so many comments. Use a different color, and bold or italicize the text. This way they can be found and recognized with ease.
Plan your strategy prior to building your site. Write down everything you’d like your website to do and what visitors would enjoy finding. This will give you a clear picture of what you want your site to look like from the get go.
Come up with a plan before you make a WordPress site. List what you would like to include on the site and the information that your visitors would enjoy reading about. This allows you to shape your website around your plans.
Keep in mind that a button for “read more” can be added. Visitors to your blog do not want to be confronted with a vast block of text. This will give your visitors the ability to read if they want to. You run the risk of having your blog appear busy and unappealing if you fail to do this.
Make sure that you include images in your site. After all, pictures are worth thousands of words. Your own blog can have just that much more oomph. Make picture descriptions with text tags so search engines have an easier time finding it.
Employ graphics in your sites. After all, pictures are worth thousands of words. Your site will have that much more drama to it. Search Engines and readers alike will appreciate your use of alternate text tags and titles.
Plugins are very valuable when using WordPress. Think about what the plugin does and how much time it would save to see if the cost is worth it. If it’s cheap and gives you tons of features, it may be worth the price.
It may be worth it to spend money on some plugins. Consider how much your time is worth and then compare that to the cost of the plugin. If the price is low and it provides important features, it may be worth the cost in the time you are saved.
Use a second folder that contains a duplicate database to test changes to your site without having them go live. That way, errors will not spoil your existing site.
If you would like to try something on your website and test some things without going live, make a copy of your blog in another folder with an identical, second database. This helps you avoid mistakes that could cost you money or your site.
The work in maintaining your site does not all have to fall on your shoulders. You could hire someone or find a friend or family member who is more experienced than you. It’s always best to ensure that the job is done properly the first time.
Keep in mind that categories and tags enable you to use SEO phrases across the site. Choose a niche that helps answer people’s questions. Think of the things you would search for if you were trying to find the information that you place on your site.
Remember that categories and tags will let you use SEO keywords throughout your site. This helps people to find relevant content easily. You can do something like “best WordPress plugins, for example, and that could lead to your article.
WordPress has an Export function you can use to regularly create backups of your content. That means you have a chronological database of backups that let you restore your content in the event of hack or server failure.
Make use of the export function on your WordPress layout. This will ensure that you have a historical database of site backups which allow you to go back in time to a clean copy if you are hacked, for example, or a recent backup if your server ends up dying.
Backup all of the images that you include. Log into your server control panel or FTP and copy the folders and their contents.
There are many reasons why WordPress is such a popular tool. As you now know, WordPress offers many capabilities. Understanding how to utilize WordPress will improve the quality of your site. Apply what you have learned from this article to do just that.
Consider which plugins you’re using on your blog before getting the newest WordPress upgrade. If you have plugins that you need to work, then you should wait on upgrading until testing is done later. If you do not wait, some plugins and widget may lose their functionality.