Virtually everyone on the web has read blog posts. Many blogs use WordPress. If you have your own site, or even if you are just curious about WordPress, the information that follows will help you learn more.
If your post title is really long, cut down the length of the web page permalink. Extremely long URLs are usually made up of excessively descriptive titles. Instead, try making the permalink “tips-parents-uncontrollable-children” or something comparable based on the SEO keywords.
If your post has a lengthy title, make sure to adjust the permalink. This would be a URL that is too long: “Ten Parenting Methods For Taming Kids The Smart Way.” Try using just the keywords for the best results.
Be sure to take special characters out of your blog post’s URLs. Special characters make it more difficult for search engines to index your site. You also need to abbreviate URLs so they do not overwhelm readers.
WordPress is full of options, features and tools that you can use to improve your blogging site. For instance, the button “kitchen sink” gives you a plethora of choices for formatting and importing content into your posts. Also check out “screen options” for admin functions. Use that to control all kinds of formatting elements.
When you take time to adjust a WordPress blog, you may not realize that your changes weren’t saved at all. This isn’t always true. Clear your cache to see if it will fix the problem. Press and then hold the shift key as you refresh the browser to make the changes show up.
Educate yourself on WordPress before you get started. Increased planning leads to a better executed blog. Learn about SEO, content creation, and how WordPress can best be used to your advantage.
The posts you make always appear in chronological order, unless you specify otherwise. You can change the order of this list by changing the dates on your blog posts. To do this, open a post so that you can see its date near the top-right. Changing the date and saving it will re-position it.
When you are committed to post content, make up a schedule. You can stay motivated when you know how to post. You can site during a day and make posts for the entire week, and then you can schedule WordPress to post them for you.
Are you overwhelmed by the comments on your site? If that’s the case, it may be hard for you or your visitors to sift through those numerous comments. You can install a plugin that does this for you. This makes for easier navigation and a more organized site.
If there is content or comments that aren’t of value, remove them. This keeps your site more user-friendly to visitors. Akismet is a plugin that can be used to keep spam off your site.
Search engine ranks can be boosted with just a little more time spent while adding photos. Be sure to add alternate and title tags to every picture. If your image goes on Pinterest, you will get more exposure.
Get rid of the special characters in your post URL’s. Their presence can cause problems for the search engine spiders, so omitting them entirely is your best bet. Use keywords and short URLs.
Create a suitable greeting and heading at the very top of your home page on your site. This will put a personal touch to your site that you visitors will appreciate. That will make things seem less formal on your site, and can be arrived at with the Greet Box plugin.
When you take time to adjust a WordPress blog, you may not realize that your changes weren’t saved at all. If changes are not being saved, there is probably a different problem. Try clearing your browser cache to solve this problem. If your depress the “shift” key while reloading your browser, the changes you made should show.
Ensure that users have easy access to your articles, which should be in their email, at their leisure. 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. You can make this easy with a WP-Email plugin.
Unless you dictate differently, your posts always show up in a chronological order. First you must modify the date, then you can rearrange the list. Open a post and look at the upper right hand corner. There you will find the date. Click on the date, change it and then save your post in order to change its position.
Organize your media library. You might be tempted to simply put images right in, but you will find it gets cluttered fast. Create a folder structure when you begin and place images into the folders properly. In time, when you wish to go back and find something, it will be easy to do.
Are your posts receiving a considerable number of comments? If so, you and other visitors might find it difficult to weed through all of them. Look for a plugin to add page numbers at the end of the comments section. Not only will your blog look more organized, but it will also make navigation a lot easier.
Limit the number of WordPress plugins you use to a minimum. When you add too many plugins, it can slow your website down. This has a negative affect on your traffic and your search engine rankings. Slow sites do not do as well in the SERPs as those that are optimized for speed.
Your search engine ranking can be improved by taking a few moments to enhance your pictures when you upload them. Make sure that your title tags are clearly indicated. Your title will show up if someone “pins” that image to Pinterest.
Make sure you have the most current WordPress on your website. There are security patches in updates, which decreases vulnerabilities. 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.
Work on creating a better greeting for the top of your WordPress website. That can be more personal for your visitors, since you can craft a message based on how they were able to find your blog. Use the WordPress Greet Box plugin to keep your website looking less robotic.
Remember to back your blog up. Do it regularly. Consider a plugin, for example Xcloner. Make sure that you create a backup to your blog. This can be done by installing a plugin. It would be terrible if you lost everything.
Ensure that your readers can send content to an e-mail as they please. This is a good way to share, especially with those who are not using Facebook or Twitter. This is accomplished by using the WP-Email plugin.
Connect posts together using internal linking plugins so that visitors can enjoy more content on the site. This type of plugin adds lists of posts at the end of every post. These are selected based on tag relevance.
Read user reviews and feedback of plugins while searching for them. Remember, these plugins can be created by anyone who knows how to program. It is not a great idea to use plugins that have many known issues. A plugin with many downloads and a high rating is usually a safe one to use.
When seeking a place to host your WordPress blog, find one that allows you to install WordPress by clicking one button. That will help you to avoid the problem of dealing with a separate database. With the click of a button, it is possible for the host to set up the blog domain along with the database.
Do you want to get rid of the WordPress clutter? Turn off some boxes on your pages. To do this, go to the top of WordPress’s window and go to “screen options”. This will give you a drop-down menu where you can choose which boxes are visible.
Let people comment on your posts. This engenders some community spirit, and you get to know a bit more about your readers. Plugins are available to help you approve comments prior to having them published on the site, keeping it free from spammers.
Highlight comments that are made by the post’s author. The comment section is where many readers will leave comments or questions. It is easy to lose track of important information. Use a different color, and bold or italicize the text. In this way, they will be easy to find.
Try to highlight comments made by blog posts authors. People express their opinions or ask questions in the section open to comments. If there is a response from the author, it can be easily overlooked. You should use a different font color for the author’s comments. They will easily be visible to visitors.
Before building a site on WordPress, put a plan together. Make a list of all the things you want to do with your site and what you want readers to find from it. That way, you can build the site around what you want to accomplish instead of doing it the other way around.
Add the “read more” button to your website. Too much text can send viewers away if they see it all at first. Let visitors decide how much they want to see. Not doing this could make the blog appear unfriendly and cluttered.
Put images on your site. The adage that a picture is worth more than a few words is still true today. Pictures add a lot of drama and excitement to your site. Be sure you use alternate text and title tags to explain your pictures so that the search engines and readers know what your picture is about.
Be sure to add images to your sites. Pictures really are worth a thousand words. Your site will possess added interest. Also use alternate text and title tags when describing the pictures to help search engines crawl your site.
Just because some plugins require payment, it does not mean that they are not worth getting. Think about the time involved compared to the price. It’s got many features at an affordable cost, so it is worth it to free up your time.
If you’d like to test changes to your blog without making those changes live, create a duplicate of your site in another folder with a duplicate, identical database. This prevents mistakes you might make in the process from costing you sales or keeping your site down.
To work on sites and changes without live updates, copy it all to another identical database. That way, errors will not spoil your existing site.
Look for help resources before you begin planning your WordPress site. For instance, the Internet is rife with blogs, social media communities and forums dedicated to WordPress. Regardless of whether your issue is with a theme or plugin, you’ll find experts available to answer your questions.
It’s not necessary for you to do all your site work alone. If you can recruit a volunteer or hire someone who has the skill to do the work, you will save time and money in the long run.
Keep a post unpublished if you have it written out but don’t want to publish yet. This way, you can still edit it, but it won’t be visible to the public. You can publish these posts whenever you are ready to do so.
Tags and categories are places where you can use keywords for SEO purposes. In fact, descriptive category names are usually what people search for in Google. For instance, you may have found this article by searching for “beginner tips for WordPress” or “plugins for WordPress.”
As you use the “Export” option, make sure to backup everything. This can be done by using FTP to log in, or use the control panel for your server to copy the folders as well as their contents.
For everyone on the Internet, blogs are a part of life and WordPress is a big part of that. You will have more success if you know how to use WordPress. Heed this info, and you can’t go wrong.
Don’t upgrade in WordPress without thinking of your installed plugins first. If you have plugins that you need to work, then you should wait on upgrading until testing is done later. Otherwise, you may run into difficulties.