As the most popular blogging platform on the web, there is a lot you can get out of using WordPress. Use WordPress to add enhancements to your blog that you had never dreamed possible. Continue reading to discover how WordPress can improve your blogging.
Title and Alt are both things you need to use. when uploading an image to a post. Not only do these fields offer more opportunities to stuff in more content specific SEO keywords, but they also allow users who can’t load images to know what they can’t see on your site.
Be sure to choose a design that is not the same as those chosen by others who have WordPress sites. Though it is less time consuming, your site will blend in with other blogs. You want to differentiate your website by enhancing the uniqueness of your business.
Take out any special characters in the URLs of your blog entries. This can hassle those search engines, so the characters are best removed. Your URLs should also be shortened to just include keywords, so they do not overwhelm your visitors.
If your title is long, clean up your post’s permalink. Something like, “The Top 5 Ways Parents Discipline their Children” is a little too lengthy. Use a few words that are descriptive of the blog.
There may be times when you devote hours to your WordPress blog only to believe that you neglected to save your changes. That is probably not the case. You may have a full browser cache that is interfering with your WordPress website. Just hold the ‘shift’ key when you refresh your browser to see the changes.
Try learning all the options and tools you can when you blog on WordPress. For example, “KITCHEN SINK” gives you more format options on posts. Your admin pages will also have a “SCREEN OPTIONS” tab. Using this will help you better manage any formatting issues.
Unless you change the settings, all your posts will be listed in chronological order. To change the list, you must change the dates. You can see the date when you open up a post. Select the date and make your changes; then, save the post to make the position change permanent.
Prior to installing WordPress, find out as much as possible about the program. Increased planning leads to a better executed blog. Learn what you can about SEO, or search engine optimization, and find out how to create engaging content for visitors. Learn how you can use WordPress to the highest advantage. That will help make sure that you don’t have a tough time when you start.
Do your posts attract a lot of comments? If so, it can be hard to weed through all of these comments. Try using a plugin that adds page numbers to the comment section. This will make the whole process much smoother.
Get rid of the special characters in your post URL’s. This makes it harder for search engine spiders to index your site, so you should get rid of them. You also need to abbreviate URLs so they do not overwhelm readers.
If you edit your pictures a little bit, you’ll be able to rise in the search results. Use a title and also text tags. If a visitor “pins” your image onto Pinterest, the title that you selected is what will show up on their screen automatically.
When you take time to adjust a WordPress blog, you may not realize that your changes weren’t saved at all. There is an easy way to ensure your changes have been made. Clearing the cache can help solve this. Save changes by holding the ‘shift’ key while refreshing the browser.
Create a suitable greeting and heading at the very top of your home page on your site. That makes for a better connection with visitors, since you will be able to personalize a message. Your webpage will be less automatic looking, and will be accessible via the Greet Box plugin.
You can up your rank with the search engines by taking a bit of time with your pictures during upload sessions. You should incorporate title tags to your photos. If a viewer pins your picture on Pinterest, your title is what will appear on their screen.
Organize your media library. Uploading images straight into the library is certainly appealing, but it does not take long for chaos to set in. You should start with a simple folder structure and go from there. This makes it easier later on if you’d like to reuse images.
Do not make something such as “admin” your own username. Using a username like admin or administrator ups your chances of being hacked. Then, your entire site is at risk. If you have usernames that are administrator or admin, delete them. Use something else.
Always update your plugins. It is possible to make your website more powerful by utilizing WordPress plugins. However, they receive updates just like normal applications. If you don’t make sure you have the latest version, you may not be getting as much as possible out of the plugin.
It is important that you securely store your password. Be certain your plugins always come from reliable sites with good reputations. You’ll lose all your hard work if your site gets hacked or infected with malware.
Make sure you have just the minimum number of WordPress plugins you need. Of course plugins are cool and fun, but each one that is added increases the time it takes your website to load. They can slow down things considerably, impacting your search engine rank. Websites that run slow aren’t ranked as highly.
Use descriptions that are very targeted. This is what users see when they search for information. Therefore, they are crucial to your site. Scribe, which is SEO software, allows you additional control over such WordPress issues. This allows you to attract additional viewers by editing the items that appear on your pages.
Make sure you have your blog backed up. Back up your blog on a daily basis. Xcloner is a wonderful WordPress plugin designed just for this purpose. Utilize the plugins or sites you like most for your blog, but take care to do backups in multiple locations. It would be disastrous to lose your whole blog.
Routinely update your plugins. These are a great tool that will make your website more powerful. Just like anything else, though, there are regular updates available for most of them. If you don’t make sure you have the latest version, you may not be getting as much as possible out of the plugin.
If you need WordPress blog hosting, try picking a host that has some installation tools for installing WordPress for you using a button. That will help you to avoid the problem of dealing with a separate database. A good host will create a blog domain on your behalf and a database to go with it.
Keep your WordPress plugin installations to the minimum you need. It can be very tempting and exciting to download as many as possible, but doing so will burden your site with a lengthy load time. They can slow down your site to the point that will negatively affect your search engine rank. Slow sites do not do as well in the SERPs as those that are optimized for speed.
Blog authoring tools are very valuable. Are you not a fan of that dashboard on WordPress? Authoring programs designed for blogging sites may be the answer. The tools can be used on WordPress, but are easier and more efficient. Try several before deciding which ones to use.
Never use an outdated version of WordPress. These updates can fix certain issues with WordPress, including vulnerabilities. Your site is more vulnerable if you use an old version. So keep your website’s WordPress install up to date to make sure you are as secure as can be.
Consider highlighting the responses you give to the comments of others. The comment section is where many readers will leave comments or questions. The author’s response to these comments can easily be missed, especially if there are many comments. Use another color to highlight comments from the author. This makes them easy to find.
Publish Box
Before you start creating your WordPress site, draft a plan. Make sure that you know what you are doing before you put the plan into action. This will let you build your site to meet the needs you have instead of you attempting to add things later on.
Schedule blog posts beforehand with WordPress. You can easily schedule the publication of your posts regardless of where you are. You can do this by tapping into the Publish box on your edit screen. Under the Publish box is a radio button that says Publish Immediately. Put the time you want the blogs to post in military time. Pick OK. When the dialog for schedule comes up, look it over and press “Schedule” if everything is correct.
Be sure to use “Read More” buttons. Don’t make people look at a wall of text on your home page. Let your visitors click if they wish to read more. Not doing this can make your blog unappealing and rather uninviting.
You don’t have to approve comments on your own anymore. You can use the plugin Akismet to do that work. You’ll be emailed once there’s a comment, but you should uncheck manual approval so that the authors get to post comments without delay. Otherwise, you’re not saving yourself any time.
Just because a plugin costs money, does not mean that you shouldn’t give it a try. Think about what the plugin does and how much time it would save to see if the cost is worth it. If it provides you with many helpful features at an affordable price, it is likely to be worth your while to make the investment in it in order to have time to devote to other things.
You do not have to depend on a drop-down menu for headers. Use shortcuts on your keyboard. You can hold down CTRL, and choose from one to six for the different options. This will save you time if you’re constantly using headers.
If you’re writing a post that isn’t all the way done, holding it in unpublished mode should be done. You’ll still be able to edit it but others will not see it. Wait until your are totally satisfied with the post before you publish it.
Does the clutter of WordPress bother you? Eliminate a few of the boxes appearing on the page. You can do this with the top WordPress button labeled “Screen Options.” You will see a menu to click that gives you the ability to turn off/on what you need and don’t need.
Be mindful of the fact that you can use categories and tags to put SEO keywords into place on your site. Clear, succinct category names can help you gain more readers by improving your ranking on the major search engines. You may have found this article using category names.
Turn on the comments for your posts. This builds a community and gives you more information about your readers. Different plugins can help you weed through and figure out which are the “real” comments and which are just spammers.
Use the Export option included with WordPress to keep your site backed up regularly. This allows you to ensure that you always have access to your past blog posts while giving you the opportunity to clean up anything that gets hacked.
Try using different authoring tools for your blog. Are you unsatisfied with WordPress’s dashboard? Try an authoring program for a blog like the Windows Live Writer. There are a lot of tools that work well with WordPress and make blogging more efficient. Give a couple of them a try to figure out which one is most effective for you.
When you do a WordPress export, be sure to backup all of your files and images that your site uses. This is done by logging in via FTP or through the control panel of the server, then copying all folders.
There’s a good reason WordPress is so popular. As you’ve just seen, there are a myriad of things WordPress is capable of. Understanding how to use WordPress the right way will be of great benefit to you. The information in this article can help you do just that.
Don’t upgrade in WordPress without thinking of your installed plugins first. Make sure that you have the latest in plugins before continuing testing. Not waiting may result in certain key elements not being able to function properly.