Many people in the blogging world have already heard of WordPress. However, many don’t know that much about it other than the name. The information outlined below is intended to rectify that situation and provide some valuable insights about WordPress.
If your blog post includes a long title, adjust your permalink. For instance, if you have a long phrase in a URL, that can seem very long. Rather than writing that, have your permalink be “discipline-tips-children” or something similar that captures your keywords.
Choose an interesting and unusual design for your WordPress blog. While it is tempting to save time, your viewers will not get the best impression. Create something that shows your unique flair.
When you are using WordPress, get familiar with the tools and features available in the application. It’s important for you to understand what the different features do and how each option improves your webpage. Use this to control a wide variety of formatting elements.
Clean up long post titles as you construct the permalink. To illustrate this, “The Best Banana Cream Pie Recipe Taught To Me By My Grandmother” would show as a very long URL that can be annoying to your readers. Instead, you could use something like: “Smart Parents Control Kids” if it works with your SEO strategy.
When you are ready to start posting, create a schedule. Having a schedule will assist you in getting your posts done on time. You may even choose to dedicate time to creating content and then letting WordPress publish it at predetermined times.
Become familiar with the options and tools that are at your disposal when you blog with WordPress. For instance, clicking the “kitchen sink” button gets you a multitude of formatting and importing options to distinguish your site. Use this to control a wide variety of formatting elements.
Eliminate any comments or content that detracts from your site’s purpose. This makes your website more user-friendly. Use Akismet if you need a plugin to do this.
The title and Alt keys should be used. text as you are uploading images to your posts. You can create more SEO phrases and viewers have the ability to see what images are accessible in case they have turned images off.
Posts are filed chronologically by default. To change the list, you must change the dates. Open a post that you want to appear at the top and change the date located in the upper right corner. Click the date, choose a new one and save the post to alter its position.
Make a schedule for posting to your blog. A schedule helps you keep your eye on the deadline; so as the deadline approaches, it may give you more incentive to write that piece. You can even create a week’s worth of content all at once and tell WordPress when to post it to your blog.
Write a personalized greeting near the top of your blog. This will make everything a little more personal when it comes to the visitors you have because you can make your site have a message to talks about how users have found blogs like yours. Access this option using the WordPress Greet Box plugin as it helps make your visitors’ experience less impersonal.
You might spend some time making changes, only to see that they haven’t taken effect. Most likely, this is not the case. To remedy this, try clearing your browser’s cache. Your changes should come up if you simply depress the Shift key while you refresh the browser.
Don’t go overboard with installing too many WordPress plugins. Although plugins can be beneficial, too many can slow down your site’s load time. They can really bog things down, which will impact how you do in the SERPs. Well-optimized sites rank better than slow ones.
Your pictures are another way to increase your rankings with search engines. You should incorporate title tags to your photos. Your title will show up when something is “pinned” on Pintrest.
Approving comments manually is a thing of the past. The Akisment plugin can do this task for you. You can save time by getting e-mail alerts when comments are posted and unchecking manual approval. You will waste a great deal of time if you approve every comment that is submitted to your site.
Allow visitors to email your articles to themselves. This is essential for sharing since many people can’t access many popular social networking sites when at work. They may wish to share articles with friends, regardless. Try using a plugin like WP-Email.
Is it challenging to meet self-imposed deadlines for your posts? Create a blurb that is posted at a specific time and date of your selection. Future publications are very convenient. Therefore, write away and get everything taken care of ahead of time.
Make sure to always organize your media library. Direct uploading of images into your library seems easy and tempting, but it can get messy fast. Start out with a good system of folders and be sure to file your images correctly. If you’d like to use an image again, you can find it easily.
Don’t use the drop-down menu when you are selecting a header. Take advantage of keyboard shortcuts instead! Press Ctrl and single number from one to six for several options. This will save you time if you’re constantly using headers.
Make sure you have the latest versions of all your plugins. Plugins are a smart solution for making your site unique and highly functional. They are updated, like any other software. If you don’t wish to keep up with the update installation, you may miss important upgrades, or they may stop working.
When searching for great plugins, make sure to read the reviews. Anybody who understands how to program can create these plugins. You shouldn’t use plugins with a lot of reported flaws or bugs. Look for plugins that are highly rated and that have been downloaded many times.
Always utilize the most current version of the WordPress program on your site. Updates often contain security patches which eliminate any vulnerabilities. If you don’t update, you could be leaving your website open to malware issues. Therefore, make sure to always install new WordPress updates to guarantee your site remains tight and secure.
If you need a WordPress blog host, only choose from those that feature a simple click function to install WordPress. This saves you the frustration of creating a separate database yourself. The one “click” can enable you to have your domain setup as well as your database.
Remember to back your blog up. This should be done regularly. Consider a plugin, for example Xcloner. Pick whichever plugin or site you would like to use. However, have it backed up in numerous locations. It would be devastating to lose your whole blog.
You should allow visitors to post comments on your site. This builds a sense of togetherness, and it also allows you to know a bit more about your traffic. Plugins are available to help you approve comments prior to having them published on the site, keeping it free from spammers.
Blog Posts
Use a variety of tools for blog authoring. What’s your opinion of the WordPress dashboard? Consider Windows Live Writer or another program that does blog authoring. There are a variety of efficient WordPress-compatible tools. You have to try more than one to really know your personal preferences.
In WordPress, you can schedule blog posts in advance. You can set them at certain times, even when a computer is far from you. You can easily do this using the Publish command located on your Edit screen. If you choose to publish immediately, all of your blog posts will be published the minute you submit them. Select the time and date you want it to be published. Click OK. You will see SCHEDULE FOR. If the schedule presented is correct, check it and click SCHEDULE.
Think about having author comments highlighted on a blog. There are often concerns and questions in the comments. It can be easy for responses to get lost in the sea of feedback. Use another color to highlight comments from the author. Finding them will be much easier this way.
Do you want to be able to post without issues? It is possible to write something ahead of schedule and have it post on a selected date. On the new post screen, you’ll notice that you can set it up to post on a later date. You can write your posts without worrying about remembering to post them.
Plan your strategy prior to building your site. List all that you wish to accomplish with your website along with what readers should get from it. This will allow you to plan in advance.
Don’t use the drop-down header menu. Keyboard shortcuts are the way to go! You can hold down CTRL, and choose from one to six for the different options. This is a major time saver if you frequently use headers.
Keep in mind that it is possible to include the “Read More” button. Nobody wants to see huge walls of text on the landing page of a blog. Visitors can click “Read More” if they choose. Not doing this will give your blog a messy look.
Is WordPress clutter getting you down? Turn several of the boxes off to clear it up. Do this from ‘Screen Options’ near the top of your window. Click this button to get a menu that lets you turn off any of the boxes.
It may be worth it to spend money on some plugins. Paid plugins may or may not be worth the funds. You have much more time to do things when features are available to you, even if they cost a little something at the outset.
Think about having author comments highlighted on a blog. Sometimes, the comments section becomes a place to ask questions. Any responses made can be missed or overlooked because of so many comments. You should make the author’s comments a different color. In this way, they will be easy to find.
If you want to work on your site without the changes being made live in order to test them, duplicate your blog in a second folder with a second, identical database. This keeps those changes from potentially damaging your entire site causing lost sales.
Create a plan prior to beginning work on your WordPress site. Write down everything you’d like your website to do and what visitors would enjoy finding. This will allow you to plan in advance.
Remember that you don’t have to do all of the work for your site alone. You could hire someone to help you make your website or blog.
You can test changes to your site before you make them live by duplicating it in an additional folder and database. That makes sure your mistakes won’t affect your entire site or affect sales.
If you’re not ready to post what you’ve written, store it as unpublished until you are ready. This way, you can still edit it, but it won’t be visible to the public. Only publish them when you are complete satisfied with how they look.
Keep in mind that you don’t personally have to work alone on your site. You can hire someone or get a volunteer that saves you your own time on the project.
WordPress has an Export function you can use to regularly create backups of your content. If something happens and you are hacked, you should be able to go back through and find a backup that you are able to use.
WordPress has been around for a while. However, the true potential of WordPress has not always been unleashed by those who have used it. If you are lucky, you will become one of the many that have reaped the benefit of this tool.
Make sure to backup all files on your site when you want to export through WordPress. This is done by logging in via FTP or through the control panel of the server, then copying all folders.